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MEMORIAL 



OF 



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Nathaniel Milton Wood, 



WITH 



SERMONS. 



EDITED BY 



NATHANIEL 'BUTLER 



LEWISTON, ME. 

GEO. A. CALLAHAN, PRINTER 

1877 




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" We are passing away. The places that now know us shall soon know 
us no more. But when we are dead we shall not be all dead. Our shadows 
will not die with us. Nay, on many hearts they may fall with mightier power 
than while we live." — Dr. Wood's Sermon on Moral Shadows. 




THE LIBRARY 
OF CONGRESS 






PREFACE. 



The Sermons contained in this volume, with the 
exception of the first, were not prepared for publi- 
cation, and are printed as they were left by their 
author, with only such alterations as were necessary 
to prepare them for the press. The Sermon on 
The Christian Alternative is printed as it appeared 
as an Article in the Baptist Quarterly ; and that on 
The Relation of the Divinity of Christ to the Atone- 
ment as it was prepared and read as an Essay 
before the Illinois Baptist Minister's Institute. 

All the Sermons now published are not regarded 
the best that were written by Dr. Wood : some of 
them appear at the request of, his personal friends, 
who remember them with great satisfaction, and 
desire to possess them in the form in which they 
are now given. 

The Editor acknowledges his obligations to the 
Rev. Washington Leverett, LL. D., the Rev. J. 



IV PREFACE. 

Bulkley, D. D., Prof. O. L. Castle, the Rev. 
Thomas G. Field, the Rev. C. H. Rowe, and espe- 
cially to the Rev. W. H. Smaller, D. D., for aid 
in the preparation of this volume. 

The Editor. 
Bangor, May, 1877. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



PAGE. 



PART I. 

I PREFACE. 3 

II MEMORIAL ADDRESS. g 



PARTI I.— S E R M O N S. 

SERMON I. 
The Christian Alternative : Jesus the Messiah, 
or Jesus an Impostor, 3 

SERMON II. 

The Relation of the Divinity of Christ to the 
Atonement, 35 

SERMON III. 

The Gospel proved Divine by its Perversions, 62 

SERMON IV. 

The Attest of Christian Experience, 78 



VI TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

SERMON V. 

The Enormity of Little Sins, 97 

SERMON VI. 

The Christian's Vocation, i i 2 

SERMON VII. 

Moral Shadows, 126 



MEMORIAL DISCOURSE. 



MEMORIAL DISCOURSE 

BY 

NATHANIEL BUTLER. 



I HAVE FOUGHT A GOOD FIGHT, I HAVE FINISHED MY 
COURSE, I HAVE KEPT THE FAITH. 2 TIM. IV. J. 

This side of its immortal life, the Christian charac- 
ter exhibits no sublimer results than those which 
often appear at the close of its earthly course. Then 
it assumes a grandeur and nobility of bearing to 
which none other can make an approach. The 
earthly ending of other callings, however command- 
ing they may have been, is attended with the inevit- 
able feeling that they have come to the "sere and 
yellow leaf;" that decay is near ; that they are disrob- 
ing themselves of -their beauty and their strength, 
and are ending in death. But when they are putting 
off their might in the silent helplessness of death, 
the Christian, — drawing the breath of a newer vital- 
ity, and assuming fresher garments of divine beauty, 
and gathering up its powers to spring to sublimer 
heights, and massing its wealth of conflict and toil, — 



IO NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

is marching away to its crown of life, and its endless 
reward. 

Such is the attitude of Paul as he writes the text. 
He has the royal bearing of an heir who has a king- 
dom to take. Towering above all forms of earthly 
greatness, he lifts his face, glorified with immortal 
hope, and gazes away upon the kingdom that awaits 
his coming. But even while he gives himself to the 
contemplation of such a prospect,, he turns to retro- 
spect,. He looks adown the way he has come. The 
ends of this way have met, — the house of Judas in 
Damascus, and the opening gateway of glory, — the 
weakness of his new-born life, and the strength that 
will measure itself in flight with an archangel's wing, 
— and between the two lie the preparation, the 
fightings, and the steadfastness of his life. "I 
have fought a good fight, * * henceforth there 
is laid up for me. a crown." The waiting kingdom 
and crown are, in thought, inseparably connected 
with the conflict, for which they are to be given, and 
the glory before him, throwing its light upon what 
is behind him, makes the past vivid, as sunset 
glories brighten eastern hills. 

This great apostle of the Christian Church has, 
therefore, furnished a precedent worthy to be fol- 
lowed — that the close of a Christian life may most 
fittingly be attended by a memorial of it. He wrote 
his own : we write that of others. 



MEMORIAL DISCOURSE. II 

A just memorial of a man is such an exposition 
of the facets of his life as will give a truthful indica- 
tion of its character. If it be of a bad man, the 
memorial will record that the prominent and charac- 
teristic facts of the life were bad, and the better acts 
will be so obscure and insignificant as scarcely to 
claim attention, or as only slightly to relieve the 
shadow that lies over all If it be of a good life, 
worthy acts will be those which will chiefly claim 
attention, and faults will have been so insignificant 
as scarcely to have had an observable influence, or 
if they have had any, they will dim, by only a slight 
degree, the lustre of the character, as flecks in the 
marble of a beautiful statue are unnoticed in admira- 
tion of the faultless proportions of the figure. It is 
thus that we account for the fact that the memorials 
of good men give such prominence to their praise- 
worthy deeds, and so little to their unworthy acts. 
Anything that would make conspicuous their faults 
would be unjust, for they were not the prominent 
points in their characters. 

The life which now claims our attention was a 
beneficent one, and the record which will be made 
of it will be of the beneficent influence it had. We 
shall tell, so far as we can, what gave it that influ- 
ence. The good man, though dead, shall yet speak 
and live for his Master and for us. He and those 
who were like him do not need this service at our 



12 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

hands. They are where, under the leading of the 
Lamb over the hills and plains of immortality, they 
will doubtless be forever coming to the blessed 
memorials of their earthly living. We look around 
for the monuments they here set up, and, as we find 
them, we bless their builders. 

Upon the coast of Maine, at a point nearly mid- 
way between its eastern and western extremities, and 
just within the southern capes of the Penobscot Bay, 
there is a cluster of hills, rising nearly to the dignity 
of mountains, which, seeming to dip their feet in the 
waters of the sea, and their sides and summits clothed 
in a soft, purple bloom, present one of the most re- 
markable views upon the American coast. Among 
these hills lies a lake, of no very great dimensions, 
but of great beauty, whose clear waters, a mile or 
two from the lake itself, by a quick succession of 
rapids, fall suddenly into the sea. Upon the banks 
of this rivulet, within the sound of the ceaseless 
music of these rapids and of the grander music of 
the sea, in the village of Camden, Nathaniel Milton 
Wood was born. His birth-day was May 24th, 
1822. The house which was his birth-place and 
his early home, stands to-day, as it was at the day 
of his birth. His life, till early manhood, was passed 
where, so far as material surroundings could impress 
their influence upon the character, that impression 
must have been of a most decided character. It is 



MEMORIAL DISCOURSE. 13 

probable that the imposing scenes which were ever 
before the eyes of the boy — the glorious mountains 
and the sea, with their solemn and everlasting in- 
spiration — helped to give the sterling intellectual 
strength, and independence of thought, which 
marked this man, who, in after years, like the 
mountains that overshadowed his boyhood, rose 
till he towered above nearly all who stood around 
him. 

His father was Ephraim Wood, who was born in 
Concord, Massachusetts, in 1774, and removed from 
that place to Camden about the year 1795. De- 
scendants of the Wood family are now citizens of 
Concord, and the ancestral mansion is in their pos- 
session. Ephraim Wood was distinguished for vigor 
of intellect, reliability of judgment, and great integ- 
rity. He was engaged in extensive mercantile and 
commercial pursuits, and filled offices of trust in 
his town. He was the husband of three wives, and 
the father of thirteen children. His second wife 
was Prudence Mirick, who became the mother of 
one daughter and three sons, of which number Na- 
thaniel was the youngest. The only surviving son is 
Hon. Ephraim Wood, Ex-Judge of Probate of Knox 
County, Maine. The daughter is S. Maria Wood, 
of South Boston, a lady of great excellence of char- 
acter, whose whole life has been intimately con- 
nected with that of the subject of this memorial, 



14 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

and whose sisterly devotion brought sunshine to 
his home, and gentle ministrations to him in his 
dying days. The mother of these children came of 
a stock that was remarkable for decision and firm- 
ness of purpose, — qualities which she transmitted 
to her youngest child. She died when he was five 
years of age. 

The lady who subsequently took the place of a 
mother to the boy was Mahitable B. Rogers. She 
filled that place with great affection and fidelity, and 
lived to see this objecl of her charge grow to the 
honored and useful man that he became, and saw 
him laid in his grave. A memorial of Nathaniel M. 
Wood would be incomplete indeed, that did not 
record the strong virtues and singular excellence 
of this remarkable woman. She still lives, in the 
full possession of her vigorous mind, at the age of 
eighty-seven. 

There was nothing, in the boyhood of Mr. Wood, 
that gave promise of the circumspection and consci- 
entiousness which conspicuously marked his man- 
hood. As a child he was willful and wayward ; and 
he gave his friends no little anxiety by his love of 
boyish mischief, which, while it did not lead him to 
any great moral delinquencies, was the source of 
discomfort to those whom his conduct- immediately 
affected. 

In 1835 a very extensive revival of religion oc- 



MEMORIAL DISCOURSE. 15 

curred in Camden, when he was thirteen years old. 
He believed that at this time he gave himself to 
Christ. Many who knew him best shared in this 
belief; and although, for several years, his life was 
very far from exhibiting a consistent Christian char- 
acter, he always dated his conversion to God at that 
time. At this period, great caution was exercised 
in encouraging children to make a profession of 
religion. Mr. Wood's father was cautious to a fault, 
and in religious faith evinced a timidity that never 
characterized his son, who inherited from his mother 
great firmness and tenacity of purpose. When 
some of the fruits of the religious interest were to 
be gathered into the Baptist Church, the son wished 
to be with them ; but the father's habitual caution 
denied him ; and on the day of the church confer- 
ence, when new members were to be received, he 
was sent into the field to work. This was a great 
grief and trial to him. But he formed a purpose in 
this matter, and at that early age took a step which 
exhibited an independence of thought and a deter- 
mination to follow - his own convictions, no matter 
what others might think, — a disposition which char- 
acterized him preeminently in all his subsequent 
life. Without the knowledge of any of his family, 
he called upon the Pastor of the Congregational 
Church and offered himself a candidate for mem- 
bership. He was not received, because his father 



l6 NATHANIEL MILTON W.OOD. 

objected. But if he had been a man he would have 
united with the church, though all the world, outside 
the church, had opposed him. 

The result which invariably follows the neglect of 
a public profession, by old or young Christians, fol- 
lowed the omission in this case ; and for eight years 
subsequent, the young man became a wanderer in 
religious life. He was constitutionally frail, and 
being inclined to study, his father gave him the 
choice between using the small patrimony that 
would be his own, in mercantile pursuits or in a 
classical course of study. He chose the latter. He 
completed his preparation for college at the school 
of Rev. Edward Freeman, at Camden, and entered 
the Freshman Class in Waterville College, — now 
Colby University, — in 1840. During his first two 
years in College, — while in his studies he acquitted 
himself with credit, — he was known as a young 
man apparently indifferent to religious matters, 
and one of a company which led in the wild 
sports which belong to some phases of college life. 
In his Junior year — in 1843 — a marked religious 
interest prevailed in the College. He became the 
subject of very deep religious impressions. For a 
short time his convictions were most pungent and 
painful. He was thoroughly reclaimed and restored 
to the enjoyment of a spiritual life. His letter 
written to his father at this time indicates that, for 



MEMORIAL DISCOURSE. IJ 

several years, he had been a very great wanderer 
from God. But his restoration was complete ; and 
he never afterward dishonored his Christian profes- 
sion. He was baptized in 1843, m Camden, by 
Rev. Daniel Bartlett, and united with the Second 
Baptist Church in that town. He was graduated, 
with honor as a scholar, in the class of 1844, at Wa- 
terville. This class numbered twelve, eight of whom 
became clergymen : Rev. William Corthell, Rev. 
John R. Greenough, Rev. Samson Powers, Rev. 
Lorenzo D. Royce, Rev. George W. Stickney, Rev. 
Nathaniel M. Wood, D. D., Rev. John B. Wheel- 
wright, and Rev. William M. Bicknell. 

Immediately upon leaving College, Mr. Wood 
went to Washington, D. C, ostensibly in search of 
employment. But there were hidden impulses mov- 
ing him that were known only to himself. He was 
struggling with and against a conviclion that he 
should preach the Gospel. He had chosen another 
calling for himself, and his hopes and ambitions led 
him in another direction than that indicated by the 
evident promptings of the Holy Spirit. When he 
went to Washington he was, like the prophet, run- 
ning away from God's call and command, and, like 
Jonah, he ran into fearful difficulties. Forming the 
acquaintance of Ex-Governor Tucker, of Mississippi, 
he went with him to that State as a teacher. He 
remained six weeks with his hospitable friend, upon 



18 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

his plantation. But those six weeks were probably 
weeks of greater mental suffering than he had ever 
known. He was amid all the horrors and cruelty of 
a Southern slave plantation, with no employment to 
divert his attention from those horrors. The fearful 
scenes he witnessed were new and unimagined by 
him. There was not another white person on the 
plantation beside himself, his host, and the overseer. 
After remaining a day or two he would gladly have 
fled, had he the means of going, or any place to 
flee to. There was, however, no alternative but to 
remain till Providence should release him. Jonah's 
prison was scarcely more "the belly of hell" than 
was that slave plantation to this young fugitive from 
duty. He was held there till he was glad to cove- 
nant with God that, if he would deliver him from 
his trouble, he would "go and preach." At the 
expiration of six weeks, a situation was opened to 
him, as tutor in the family of General Browning, of 
Columbus, Miss. He filled this position about one 
year, when, providentially falling in with a student 
about to enter upon a course of theological study, 
he entered with him the Western Baptist Theologi- 
cal Institute, at Covington, Ky., under the charge 
of Rev. R. E. Pattison, D. D. He pursued his 
studies at this school for a year and a half, till the 
summer of 1847, when he returned to Maine. 
When he left his native state in 1844, Mr. Wood 



MEMORIAL DISCOURSE. 19 

was fleeing from his duty ; he returned within three 
years, ready cheerfully to labor wherever his Master 
should appoint him a place. That place was imme- 
diately opened to him at Bloomfield — now Skow- 
hegan — Maine. He entered upon his work in that 
town in December, 1847, spending the winter in 
the family of Rev. Charles Miller. 

Mr. Wood was ordained Pastor of the Baptist 
Church in Bloomfield, May 13th, 1848. The fol- 
lowing were the services at his ordination : Reading 
of the Scriptures, by Rev. I. Merrill ; Introductory 
Prayer, by Rev. William Tilly ; Sermon, by Rev. A. 
Kalloch ; Ordaining Prayer, by Rev. C. Miller ; 
Charge, by Rev. A. Drinkwater ; Right Hand of 
Fellowship, by Rev. G. W. Stickney ; Address to 
the Church, by Rev. H. G. Nott ; Concluding 
Prayer, by Rev. W. H. Hathaway, of the Congre- 
gational Church, Bloomfield. After the lapse of 
nearly thirty years, this ordination is remembered 
as an occasion of extraordinary interest, and fruitful 
of happy results. It was immediately followed by 
a religious awakening, and the young pastor began 
to gather at once the fruits of his own devoted 
labors and of those of his predecessor, Rev. C. Mil- 
ler. A paper adopted by this Church, at the time 
of Mr. Wood's resignation of the pastorate, states 
that "during the short period of four years, about 
one-half of the present number of the Church have 



20 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

been brought from the power of sin to a knowledge 
of the true God." His own record is that he 
baptized in Bloomneld, every month, after his ordi- 
nation in May, 1848, till the following April, and 
received in all, by baptism, seventy-nine. In the 
year 1 849 he baptized into that Church — then not 
a large one — fifty-eight. Among these were Rev. 
S. C. Fletcher, Rev. C. F. Weston, and Rev. Edw. 
Wyman. Thus, in the very beginning of his min- 
istry, he witnessed the results which attended him 
in every field of his labor — the conversion of large 
numbers to God. 

Mr. Wood was married, September 26th, 1848, 
to Caroline L. Bray, daughter of the Rev. Sullivan 
Bray, of Dresden, Me. The children of this mar- 
riage were, Maria E., Carrie Ella, and Annie P., 
of whom Mrs. Wood and the two elder daughters 
are living. Annie died, at Lewiston, Me., Novem- 
ber 2d, 1865. 

Mr. Wood was in Bloomfield four years, till Jan- 
uary, 1852. The recollection of this pastorate, by 
those still living, is of one of great prosperity ; and 
the memory of the pastor is held in great affection 
and reverence by all who knew him intimately there. 
He had, at this time, acquired the reputation of a 
strong and clear thinker and an able preacher. The 
Baptist Church in Waterville judged him to be 
a man peculiarly adapted to fill the place of the 



MEMORIAL DISCOURSE. 21 

preacher, to whom the Faculty of the College and 
the students could listen with profit, as well as to 
be a successful pastor in that locality. He received 
and accepted the call of this Church in Jan., 1852. 

During several years of his service at Waterville, 
he gave himself to close study and to careful 
preparation for the pulpit. His sermons, written 
within this period, — especially those upon Christian 
doctrine, — evinced a clearness of thought and logical 
accuracy rarely surpassed. It was at this time he 
wrote his masterly sermon upon the Messiahship 
of Christ, which he incorporated in an article which 
was printed in the second volume of the Baptist 
Quarterly, and entitled : The Christian Alternative : 
Christ the Messiah, or Christ the Impostor. The 
results which attended his preaching at the begin- 
ning of his ministry followed his work at Waterville. 
In 1852 a very extensive religious interest existed. 
Dr. Wood's own judgment was that, in the village 
and in the College, nearly one hundred were hope- 
fully converted to God. 

In 1858, a very general religious Revival existed 
in his Society, The legitimate influence of his pecu- 
liar method of presenting the truth was apparent in 
this interest. With fidelity and unsparing directness 
he preached the weighty doctrines of the Word of 
God. He wielded, as his favorite weapon, the Law, 
and dealt such tremendous blows that his friends 



22 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

became fearful that he was too plain and severe : 
but, in due time, such fidelity resulted in the sure 
conquests God's truth wins. Many were converted, 
— among these were many students in the College ; 
and among the citizens were men whose age and 
condition of unbelief had placed them beyond the 
ordinary subjects of reclaiming grace. A just esti- 
mate of a pastor's success is not always reached by 
determining the number he adds to his church ; but 
it will assist .in forming a true judgment of Mr. 
Wood's success, in this instance, to know that, 
although very many who professed conversion in 
this Revival, did not unite with the Church, he 
baptized, within a few weeks, fifty-seven, who did 
become members of it. A History of the Water- 
ville Church, published in 1872, records that "After 
eight years of faithful service he resigned, December 
1 8th, 1859." 

At this date, Rev. George Knox, who had been 
Pastor of the Baptist Church in Lewiston from its 
constitution — a period of twelve years — concluded 
his service with that Church. He preached his fare- 
well sermon at Lewiston on the last Sunday in 1859, 
and on the same day Mr. Wood preached his, at Wa- 
terville, and on the first Sunday in i860 filled the 
pulpit at Lewiston, accepting the call of the Church 
in that city. It was a very pleasant incident con- 
nected with this settlement, that Mr. Knox was still 



MEMORIAL DISCOURSE. 23 

with the Lewiston Church, and with great cordiality 
welcomed his successor to the place he had, himself, 
so well filled for so many years. Mr. Wood lived 
to officiate at the funeral of Mr. Knox, who a few 
years later was buried in Lewiston. 

Mr. Wood began his service at Lewiston in the 
full vigor of his physical and intellectual manhood ; 
and the six years he spent there were among the 
best of his life. He held a commanding position 
among the ministers of the city ; and in the com- 
munity one of wide influence. But that which 
marked this pastorate above, perhaps, any other of 
his, was the extraordinary Revival in 1862. During 
the early months of that year — while yet his own 
people were moved in no unusual manner — to him 
was imparted a measure of faith that foresaw the 
coming of the glory of the Lord. He labored with 
unwearying and increasing zeal to prepare the way, 
till his own and other churches were brought into a 
state of expectancy of the coming blessing. He 
was chiefly instrumental in procuring, at Lewiston, 
the services of the- Rev. Edw. P. Hammond, with 
whom all the churches cordially cooperated. Then 
succeeded that great rain of blessing which flooded 
that city with rivers of salvation. It was judged 
that more than three hundred were converted at 
this time. On the' first Sunday in June, 1.862, Mr. 
Wood united with the pastors of the Methodist and 



24 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

Free Will Baptist Churches in administering bap- 
tism ; when one hundred and one were baptized. 
He baptized and received to his own Church 
eighty-eight, during the summer. 

In November, 1865, he was called to the first 
great domestic affliction of his life, by the death of 
his youngest daughter, Annie Porter, at the age of 
twelve years. It was a heavy blow upon him, which 
he bore like the strong and trusting Christian that 
he was. The shadow of this sorrow lay, with a 
subduing and mellowing influence, over all his sub- 
sequent life, and the memories, and perhaps more 
than memories, of the lost one swelled the gladness 
of his dying hour. 

After six years of labor in that city, Mr. Wood 
believed his successful work in Lewiston was done, 
and in March, 1866, he vacated his office there. 
In August of the same year, he assumed charge 
of the First Baptist Church in Thomaston. 

The entire period of this pastorate — a period of 
eighteen months — was one of spiritual prosperity 
among his people, and his Church was increased by 
about the same number that was added, by him, to 
the churches he previously served. He was accus- 
tomed to refer to the months passed in Thomaston 
as the happiest in his ministry. He had, in his 
congregation, men of sterling character and strong 
minds, just such as he loved to preach to, and such 



MEMORIAL DISCOURSE. 25 

as could appreciate the stronger points in his own 
character and preaching. To this people he became 
warmly attached : and as evidence that this feeling 
was entirely reciprocated, it will be sufficient to 
record, that when Dr. Wood was laid aside from 
active work in his last illness, the people of Thom- 
aston were among the first to remember him and 
his family, in those expressions of sympathy and 
love which were doubly blessed, — blessing both 
those who gave and those who received ; and in 
his latest days did he especially love to refer to the 
benefactions of that Christian lady, Mrs. Jane Y. 
Fish, who, with others, will wait for a full recom- 
pense at the resurrection of the just. He severed 
his connection with the Thomaston Church in 
1868. 

While serving as pastor in the several churches 
already named, Mr. Wood filled the office of Presi- 
dent of the Maine Baptist Convention, in 1854, and 
was its Secretary in 1855. He was Secretary of the 
Maine Baptist Missionary Society, for ten years, 
from 1857 ; and when this Society and the State 
Convention were united, under the name of the 
Maine Baptist Missionary Convention, he was the 
first Corresponding Secretary, and served one year 
till he removed from the State. He was a member 
of the Board of Trustees of Waterville College for 
seven years, from 1862 ; and in 1867 received from 

D 



26 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

this institution — his Alma Mater — the honorary 
degree of Doctor of Divinity. 

Very soon after his settlement in Thomaston, Dr. 
Wood t received earnest solicitations from Upper 
Alton, III, through Rev. R. E. Pattison, D. D., of 
Shurtleff College, to accept the pastorate of the 
church in that place. He declined to listen to them. 
Early in 1868, these were renewed and pressed with 
great earnestness. He was personally known to 
members of the College Faculty, who were desirous 
that the College should enjoy the advantages of his 
great ability as a preacher. He weighed, long and 
carefully, the request of the people of Upper Alton, 
and 'accepted the call; and in May, 1868, with his 
characteristic energy, he went to his work. He 
found the church edifice a most inconvenient and 
unsuitable structure, and proceeded, very soon, to 
procure a better one. He succeeded, through great 
obstacles, in building a house of worship worthy of 
the place and of the College, and which stands a 
monument of his untiring and painstaking labor. 

His pastorate at Upper Alton had the general 
character that marked all others which he held. 
Unusual religious interest prevailed in his congre- 
gation. Within the four years he was there, con- 
siderable numbers were converted, among the stu- 
dents of the College, and of Rural Parke Institute, 
a College for young ladies ; so that here, as in Wa- 



MEMORIAL DISCOURSE. 27 

terville, he was honored in being allowed to lead 
into the Christian life not a few who have gone from 
the influence of his life to bless the world, — men 
and women whose education he helped to sanctify 
to the service of Christ. His official connection 
with this church closed on March 13th, 1872. 

During the last twenty months of his pastoral 
services with his church, he filled, provisionally, the 
chair of Systematic Theology in Shurtleff College ; 
and in March, 1872, was elected to that Professor- 
ship. He retained this Professorship till June, 1874, 
— making four years of service in the College. 

When Dr. Wood was solicited to accept the call 
of the church at Upper Alton, it was with represen- 
tations which led him to believe that a position of 
great usefulness was opened to him ; and these rep- 
resentations were the sincere and truthful convic- 
tions of those who made them. Had these expec- 
tations been realized, he would, doubtless, have 
entered upon the period of his greatest usefulness. 
He determined to go to Illinois, incurring what is 
always a hazardous experiment, — accepting a call 
to a field which was entirely unknown to himself by 
personal observation. But, when he entered it, it 
was with all the devotion and zeal of which he was 
capable ; and especially did he devote himself to the 
interests of Shurtleff College. This institution had 
financial embarrassments ; its friends were endeav- 



28 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

oring to extract from these ; and Dr. Wood cooper- 
ated with his associates in this endeavor. After six 
years of whatever of earnest effort he was capable, 
he reached the conviction that there remained noth- 
ing more that he could do efficiently in Upper 
Alton, and he therefore resigned his Professorship, 
in June, 1874, greatly to the regret of many of the 
best friends of the College. 

Dr. Wood did not regard his work in Illinois as 
being the most successful of his life — certainly it 
was the period of his most anxious and arduous toil 
— but it is probable that no part of his life will yield 
greater, more lasting, or more beneficent results. 
He was a Trustee of Shurtleff College for six years. 
No member of the Board was, during that time, 
more prompt and more constant in attendance upon 
its meetings, or served on more important commit- 
tees than himself; and this was no light draft upon 
him, for the meetings of the Board were very fre- 
quent and its sessions often of great length. Of his 
connection with the Board no better statement can 
be made than appears from the following extract, 
from a letter from the Rev. Thomas G. Field, pastor 
of the Baptist Church in Alton, and Secretary of the 
Board of Trustees : "Dr. Wood was elected a mem- 
ber of the Board of Shurtleff College, July 8th, 
1868. He was present at every subsequent meeting 
of the Board — excepting perhaps one — until he 



MEMORIAL DISCOURSE. 29 

left Upper Alton. He labored effectively to im- 
prove the financial condition of the College from 
his very arrival. He was elected member of the 
Executive Committee, June 9th, 1869, and served 
as chairman of that Committee from June 8th, 1870, 
to June 12th, 1872, — and as Secretary of the Board 
from the latter date until June 10th, 1874. He 
constantly pressed the importance of increasing and 
securing endowments, and obtaining the debts due 
the College — of providing a substantial income for 
the increase of the library, and for the aid of minis- 
terial students. His loss fills us all with unfeigned 
grief, but surely the glory of heaven is brighter for 
his advent." 

Upon the acceptance of his resignation of his 
Professorship, the Board passed the following reso- 
lutions : 

Resolved, That we accept with regret the resigna- 
nation of Rev. N. M. Wood, D. D., of the Chair of 
Systematic Theology, in the Theological Department 
of this College. 

Resolved, That in doing so we extend to him our 
sincere thanks for his fidelity and attention to 
duty as an instructor ; and assure him of our ap- 
preciation of his various labors in behalf of the 
College. 

Resolved, That our best wishes will go with him 
to future fields of usefulness ; and we hope that the 



30 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

continued blessing of our Heavenly Father may rest 
upon him. 

The record of Dr. Wood's work at Upper Alton 
may well be concluded with the testimony to its 
value given by the Rev. Washington Leverett, 
LL. D., of Shurtleff College. He writes: 

"The results of his judicious plans and faithful 
labors, for both the Church and the College, have 
ceased not to be beneficial, and are still measurably 
shaping their destiny for good." 

Upon his return from Illinois, in June, 1874, Dr. 
Wood made his residence in South Boston, Mass. 
For more than a year and a half he preached as a 
temporary supply and as a candidate for settlement, 
in various churches in Massachusetts ; but for rea- 
sons that were inexplicable to himself and to his 
friends — but doubtless clear to a higher wisdom — 
no field was opened to him. It seemed remarkable 
that for the use of his wealth of experience and his 
great ability as a preacher there should have been 
no demand, among all the churches who seemed to 
wish the services of a good man and an able minister 
of Jesus Christ. He was a man of God, thoroughly 
endowed for every good work ; he had been emi- 
nently successful as a pastor in some of the most 
important churches in Maine ; he was well nigh the 
peer of any minister in New England, for intel- 
lectual strength, clearness and accuracy of thought, 



MEMORIAL DISCOURSE. 31 

logical power, soundness in doctrine, and force as a 
preacher : and yet, among the multitude of churches 
in Massachusetts and the neighboring states, desti- 
tute of pastors, he did not find one that desired his 
services. Whether the dark Providence that allowed 
him to meet with such a reception upon his return, 
and shut him out from his best loved method of 
work, so far broke the strong spirit within him, as to 
prostrate his physical energies and invite the devel- 
opment of lurking disease, will, perhaps, never be 
known here. There can be no doubt that he had a 
hereditary tendency to consumption, which only 
waited to be developed by extraordinary circum- 
stances, and that he returned from Illinois in health 
by no means so vigorous as that with which he went 
to that State. The facts already stated may have fur- 
nished adequate causes for what certainly. followed. 
He persevered in his determination to work in his 
calling, till April, 1876, when his failing strength 
compelled him to cease from his public ministrations. 
Dr. Wood preached, for the last time, at Manches- 
ter, N. H., February 27th, 1876. His text was Acts 
v. 1 5 : That at least the shadozv of Peter passing by 
might overshadow some of them ; when his great 
prostration plainly indicated that his own healing 
mission to men was nearly done — 

"As lengthening shadows o'er the lawn 
Proclaim the close of day." 



32 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

From that time he was, for the most part, confined 
to his home. He struggled with his disease — which 
clearly was consumption — as he had always strug- 
gled against every force which opposed him in his 
life work. He was hopeful, as he had always been 
in the darkest hours that had come to him. He had 
come back to New England with the expectation of 
spending years in active service for his Master. He 
could not believe there was no more a place for him 
upon the whitened fields. He did not know — what 
proved to be true — that there were in store for him 
things far better than even his much* loved work. 
Now, those who outlive him can understand it : they 
can see that only through the long trial of months 
of failing and disappointment could he have reached 
the surpassingly blessed ending of life that was 
granted him ; that in that furnace of affliction God 
was specially calling him; to lay down, one by one, 
the implements of labor and the weapons of warfare ; 
to be ready to receive the welcome of his Lord ; to 
take the crown of victory and put on the habiliments 
of immortality, and begin the everlasting service of 
heaven. He attended divine service, for the. last 
time, with the Temple Church, Boston, Sunday, 
April 2d, and on that occasion assisted at the sacra- 
ment of the Lord's Supper ; and from that day until 
the end, his sick room was the only sanctuary of the 
Divine manifestations to his soul. 



MEMORIAL DISCOURSE. 33 

From this time began a series of ministrations to 
the failing invalid, which were beautiful illustrations 
of Christian charity, and which came like balm upon 
his spirit, made tender by the great trial of being 
laid aside from his much loved activities. From 
friends in every church in Maine, of which he had 
been a pastor, — from Skowhegan, and Waterville, 
and Lewiston, and especially from Thomaston, — 
came expressions of loving remembrance, which 
smoothed the way that otherwise would have been 
rough indeed, bringing sunshine with them, and 
which are sure to meet the givers again in the 
verdict, " Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of 
the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto 
me. 

As sometimes a river, just before it enters the sea 
that waits its coming, turns its eddying currents 
back towards its source, so his spirit turned to the 
home of his childhood, and longed for the shade of 
the spreading elms, and the welcoming embrace of 
the purple mountains of his native village. Two 
weeks before his death he went to Camden, Me. 
He went with the still confident hope that he would 
there find returning strength. To those best able 
to form an intelligent judgment, it was evident that 
he was very near the end. It was not till Sunday, 
July 30th, that it became apparent that his confi- 
dence in returning health was shaken. On that day 



34 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

he insisted that his sister should tell him his true 
condition. She intimated her serious fears that he 
was certainly failing, and asked him what were his 
own feelings with regard to himself; and how the 
future looked : " I have," said he, " a strong prefer- 
ence for life : but I am willing the Lord should do 
as He thinks best. I should like to live to be a 
comfort to my family, and to do more work for the 
Master. I have loved my work, and though I have 
committed errors, yet I think grace has been given 
me, in the main, to be faithful." Until this time he 
had clung with extraordinary tenacity to life, believ- 
ing that he would yet live to preach. But it was not 
any uncertainty with reference to the future — no 
selfish, worldly clinging to life — that made him 
seem determined to hold death back. He chose to 
live that he might " work for the Master." Never- 
theless, it was painful to see him — so surely passing 
away — turning with such a wistful longing toward 
his lifework on earth. We had not a fear for him 
when he should get fully away ; and we knew that, 
at the very first step upon the celestial shore, all the 
attractions of earthly service would be lost — not 
worthy to be compared to the glory that would be 
revealed to him. But we longed to have him undo 
his hold upon earth while still here ; and before he 
got beyond our vision and our hearing, to catch a 
view of the superlative glories that were awaiting 



MEMORIAL DISCOURSE. 35 

him ; and that the Saviour, whom he so loved to 
see leading him through toil and suffering here, 
might even now be revealed to him, as he was wait- 
ing for him, to lead him to the many mansions in 
his Father's house. 

And now, on this Sabbath day, came the begin- 
ning of the end. The curtain was lifting : he was 
yielding his grasp upon mortal life, and slowly turn- 
ing his face toward the shore where were gathering 
the blessed to receive him. 

Monday night was a night of fearful physical 
suffering. When great drops of agony were on his 
forehead, he said, "The will of the Lord be done, 
though it be pain and suffering." On Tuesday 
noon, having extorted from his physician the con- 
viclion that he could live but a few hours, with the 
calm deliberation which always marked him, he said, 
" I should like to call my family around me and take 
my departure." They were called — his wife, and 
children, and immediate connections. He took the 
hand of each, and spoke to them words that were 
" like apples of gold in pictures of silver." He bade 
his family to wear no weeds of mourning for him 
after his burial, for they must think of him, not as in 
darkness and gloom, but in a home of light and joy. 
Then he prayed his last audible prayer on earth. 
He said he should soon meet the Saviour and. loved 
ones who were with him, and said, " O, will not that 



36 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

be a gladsome meeting ! I am going home. I have 
no fears, for I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ!" 
Then they read to him the words of Jesus in the 
14th and 17th chapters of John, and after this he lay 
waiting to go. Had he then gone, all of us would 
have felt that it was a peaceful departure. He was 
accustomed to say, when in heakh, that he had little 
confidence in remarkable experiences on death-beds ; 
that persons of peculiar temperaments might have 
apparently supernatural experiences and visions that 
were unreal. On Sunday, he said he did not antici- 
pate any triumphal death for himself — only a peace- 
ful passing away. Ah, how little did he know what 
his Redeemer was preparing for him on his death- 
bed ! How little did he know, from personal expe- 
rience, what Jesus could make a dying bed ! 

On Wednesday, the chariot came for him in the 
early morning. He exclaimed, " I am now going 
over the river." " Do you see him ?" he asked his 
daughter. 

" Whom ? " she enquired. 

" The Saviour." 

"No — do you?" 

" Yes," said he ; and he called by name each of a 
company of the beloved who had gone before, who 
he believed stood around him. Then, with a dis- 
tinctness of voice which he had not had for many 
days, he repeated the verse, " Rock of Ages, cleft 



MEMORIAL DISCOURSE. 37 

for me ; " and when he came to " From thy side a 
cleansing flood," he repeated it many times. His 
daughter repeated, "Jesus lover of my soul." "Sing 
it" said he ; and as she sang he followed her, 
repeating every word, and as it was finished, he 
said, " I can say all that," exclaiming again and 
again, "Cover my defenceless head!" As he 
seemed to step into the ascending chariot he said, 
" I praise God with my latest breath," and with one 
more audible "Farewell /" he went up. In this 
scene of wonderful beauty and triumph his face 
was transfigured ; the expression of weariness and 
anxious pain was gone, and the foregleams of the 
coming glory lighted his face with the radiance 
of heaven, and his eye shone with the rapture the 
visions of glory enkindled. 

Dr. Wood was buried from the residence of his 
brother, Hon. Ephraim Wood, in Camden, August 
5th, 1876. Prayers were offered by the Rev. Nath- 
aniel Butler, of Bangor, when the family and friends 
proceeded to the Congregational Church, where 
more public services were held. The invocation 
was offered by the Ret. B. S. Arey, of the Methodist 
Church, and the Scriptures were read by the Rev. 
S. L. B. Chase, of Rockland. Prayer was offered by 
the Rev. G. W. Bower, of Camden, and an address 
delivered by the Rev. Nathaniel Butler. Rev. J. 
Washburn, of Rockport, now more than ninety years 



38 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

of age, — the associate of Dr. Wood's father, — paid 
a touching and eloquent tribute to the man whom 
he had known in his infancy. After another prayer 
by the Rev. G. P. Mathews, of Thomaston, and the 
benediction by the Rev. W. R. Cross, of the Con- 
gregational Church, the funeral train proceeded to 
the cemetery which lies at the foot of Megunticook 
Mountain, and from whose graves one looks, on one 
hand, back to the beautiful hills that stretch away to 
the North, and on the other, out upon the sea, the 
murmur of whose waves may well seem to be ever 
sounding the requiem of the quiet sleepers here. 
At the grave, a brief and tender prayer was offered 
by the Rev. Joseph Kalloch, of Rockland ; and after 
the singing of the beautiful hymn — 

" We shall meet beyond the river 
Bye and bye," — 

those who knew him best and loved him most left 
him, side by side with his little daughter Annie, in 
that 

" Blessed sleep 
From which none ever wake to weep." 



Thus far, only the most prominent facts in the life 
of the subject of this memorial have been given. 
These, as they have been given, are not sufficient to 
enable one to form a just estimate of the character 



MEMORIAL DISCOURSE. 39 

of the man. Only an exhaustive biography could 
do this. The estimate that is now to be given of 
the character and work of Dr. Wood must, there- 
fore, be accepted, for the most part, as the impres- 
sions which his life has made upon one mind ; and 
that, the mind of an intimate friend ; but of a friend 
who has been closely associated with the one he 
measures, and has witnessed his life in all the phases 
which it has exhibited, during the period of a gener- 
ation of men. 

That Dr. Wood was a man of unusual intellectual 
endowments could fairly be inferred from the posi- 
tions which he has filled, and from his success in 
them. The subjects he undertook to investigate or 
to teach he grappled with the strength and skill of a 
master. In none of these was he ever superficial or 
weak. He did not traverse the broadest fields of 
thought ; but what he did, he mastered, so far as he 
did investigate them. He did not gather the wealth 
of wisdom that other men have in various depart- 
ments, but what he did gather was pure gold. He 
was a close student in the department of systematic 
theology, and accurate in his knowledge ; and in this 
department he was strongest, although his general 
reading was by no means limited. 

He had a strength of will that was equal to great 
labor, and that held him to his purpose, from which 
nothing could turn him .but a conviction that he was 



4-0 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

wrong. He was firm as the hills ; and when he 
reached a conviciion it was once for all. Vacillation 
was no quality of his character. When he had occa- 
sion to combat an error or false doclrine in theology 
he never " let up," or cried for quarter. When he 
assumed a pastorate he went at once to the work to 
do something — to accomplish some success belong- 
ing to a pastor's work. He always labored for a 
season of religious revival and for the conversion of 
men to God ; and when he became convinced of 
God's willingness to grant that blessing, he set all 
his energies at work ; and he usually saw the attain- 
ment of his purpose. In his first pastorate — that at 
Bloomfield — he evidently had a general religious 
awakening in view, through many months, and 
infused into his people his own faith and enthusiasm 
till the result transcended his own hopes. It was 
precisely this clinging to a good purpose which 
distinguished him, that qualified him for the part he 
had to perform in gathering the ripened harvest at 
Lewiston. There he found a great religious indif- 
ference in the whole community. He began special 
meetings on the first of January, and after a brief 
period, becoming convinced that God would pour a 
great blessing upon the city, he continued his public 
meetings for most of the time till April — preaching 
often during every week — standing, in his faith and 
hope far in advance of others, and inspiring and 



MEMORIAL DISCOURSE. 4 1 

leading Christian effort, till it culminated in that 
most wonderful ingathering of souls. At Upper 
Alton he undertook what others had refused, and 
few would have dared, — the building of a church 
edifice becoming the place ; and persisted, — work- 
ing with axe and shovel in his own hand, and col- 
lecting funds, — till the finishing blow was given 
and the last dollar was paid. In the matter of 
relieving Shurtleff College from its financial embar- 
rassment, he labored with unabated zeal — remain- 
ing when his trusted associates relinquished their 
posts, and toiled on till his brave heart and weak- 
ened body had to yield to impossibilities. 

Dr. Wood was a man of great courage. He was 
absolutely incapable of moral cowardice — never 
afraid to say and to do anything he believed to be 
right. Opposition only strengthened his purpose. 
However this may subject one to the charge of 
stubbornness, in trivial things, it helps to make him 
a splendid champion of a principle. On a certain 
occasion, a delegation from his church, or society, — 
or from both, — waited upon him, requesting him to 
change his method of preaching ; for his unsparing 
denunciations of sin were regarded as calculated 
to alienate rather than to win men to piety. He 
patiently listened to the representations of his 
friends, and then informed them that he would 
answer .them, on the next Sunday, from the pulpit. 

. F 



42 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

Accordingly, on the following Sunday he gave his 
answer. He said, substantially: "I have been 
requested to modify my method of preaching, so 
far as to discontinue my denunciations of the wrath 
of God against sinning men. When I came to 
this pulpit, I thought I very distinctly announced 
it as my purpose to declare what I believed to 
be the whole counsel of God, however it might 
affe6l my hearers. It seems that I was not so 
understood ; but that the tastes and opinions of 
my hearers were to be regarded. Let it then now, 
and hereafter, be understood that I shall preach 
the word of God as I believe He has given it, 
'whether men will bear or whether they will for- 
bear.' " And he went right on in his own way of 
preaching. 

Dr. Wood was a man of entire integrity. He was 
eminently conscientious. There are persons who 
have sensitive consciences, but who rarely obey 
them. Such are weak, and often bad men. This 
man obeyed his conscience ; and it is not too much 
to say, he was truth itself in what he said and did. 
Says the Rev. Dr. Bulkley, of Shurtleff College : 
" He was the truest man I ever knew." And so 
others can say ; and those who knew him best 
believe him to have been entirely incapable of 
uttering an untruth, or of misrepresentation. 

He was a man of true charity ; not, however, of 



MEMORIAL DISCOURSE. 43 

the easy and pliant kind which winks at sin or apolo- 
gizes for wrong. He was severe, and sometimes 
even harsh — perhaps unnecessarily so — toward 
what he regarded false in do£trine, or wrong in 
conduct. He was, at times, in the exhibition of his 
indignation at wrong, repelling in his manner, and 
thus impaired his influence in certain directions. 
But he had that charity that made him catholic in 
spirit, liberal towards Christians of other denomina- 
tions, and a true yoke-fellow with all good men, in 
all beneficent labor : so that he numbered among 
his warmest friends men who differed essentially 
with him in matters of religious belief. He was 
slow to believe evil of others ; and evil speaking 
foundj little favor with him. I cannot recall the 
instance during an acquaintance of thirty-five years 
in which he trifled with the reputation of one of his 
brethren ; and if the emotion of jealousy was known 
to him, he did not exhibit it. He heartily rejoiced 
in the success of his brethren. He was a friend that 
never forgot or betrayed the friendship of another. 

Dr. Wood was a' man of deep and sincere piety. 
He had been a wayward and sinful boy ; and just 
previous to his remarkable experience in college, 
when he became a penitent and returning prodigal, 
he was, apparently, rapidly settling himself in ways 
of fatal departure from God ; but his life, subse- 
quently, was that of a true and humble Christian. 



44 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

What remains of any diary or journal that he kept 
shows that, for many years, he observed one day in 
every month as a fast day, when he gave himself to 
devotional exercises — especially to self-examination 
and prayer. In seasons of special religious interest 
among his people, he was to them an example of 
faith, and hope, and persevering prayer — infusing 
into them his own spirit of devotion. It is not 
always true, at such seasons, that the pastor repre- 
sents the spiritual power of the work. His preach- 
ing and his executive tact may make him indispensa- 
ble to such a movement ; but the prayer, the faith, 
the unseen inspiration are often through others than 
preachers or pastors. Dr. Wood was as strong in 
these as in his preaching, and marched in front of 
the sacramental host he nominally led. He had, by 
nature, the keenest appreciation of wit, and pos- 
sessed no small share of it himself, but was rarely 
led to indiscretion in word or conduct.. He was 
constitutionally impatient and restive under restraint, 
but he learned so much of self-control as to become 
eminently a patient and quiet man. During one 
period he and his friends believed himself to be the 
subject of injustice and misapprehension ; but in it 
all he uttered no words which he could justly be 
asked to recall ; and near the close of his life he 
marked whatever record he had kept of this painful 
passage " to be destroyed" — and it was destroyed. 



MEMORIAL DISCOURSE. 45 

Through such scenes he exhibited the noble bearing 
of a man who could show 

" How sublime a thing it is 
To suffer and be strong." 

With the endowments which Dr. Wood possessed 
there were qualifications to his character which 
undoubtedly rendered him less effective, as a Chris- 
tian minister, than he otherwise would have been. 
To those not intimate with him there was an air of 
distant coldness — a lack of the warm, magnetic 
sympathy that quickly attracts and attaches men to 
one. Had he been moulded, in this respect, to a 
different form, with warmer impulses, he would have 
been a commanding" leader among; men. He had 
few attractive elements, in form or features, or man- 
ner. He used to tell, with great good humor, the 
following; incident : He was once walking;, on Lisbon 
Street, in Lewiston, and stopping at a photographer's 
saloon, he stood, unobserved, behind two ladies who 
were looking at some photographs, hanging at the 
window. " Look," said one of them to her compan- 
ion, " Look at this ! Here is the homeliest man I 
ever saw." Dr. Wood looked over her shoulder and 
saw her finger pointing at his own picture. 

But if, to any, " his bodily presence was weak," 
they had only to hear him, when, with his masterly 
logic, he vindicated the word of God, or with irresis- 



46 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

tible conviction appealed to the consciences of men, 
to realize that there was in him something " weighty 
and powerful." On his first appearance, in the 
pulpit of a church, when he was a candidate for 
settlement, he came with one whose commanding 
presence always attracted notice. Alluding to Dr. 
Wood, a prominent man in the congregation asked, 
"Who is that man?'.' "Wait a little," said his 
friend, " and you will see." Before Dr. Wood had 
finished his sermon, the inquisitive man was pre- 
pared to call him a pastor. 

As a preacher, Dr. Wood was what his intellectual 
characteristics would lead us to expedl. At an early 
period in his public life he took high rank among 
strong and able preachers, and maintained this posi- 
tion to the- close. 

His was not that cast of logical mind that best 
exhibits itself in the investigation and accumulation 
of facts and data ; but, having his premises given 
him, or having assumed them, he went straight on 
to their legitimate conclusions, with directness, accu- 
racy and force. In his more carefully written pro- 
ductions, it was nearly impossible for his readers or 
hearers — if they followed him — to resist his con- 
clusions. 

His views of theological truth were clear, and in 
his preaching he was equally clear — with no waste 



MEMORIAL DISCOURSE. 47 

of words, and no ambiguity. He came directly to 
his subject, and went to the point to be made by the 
shortest line. A description by Tennyson is true of 
Dr. Wood : 

" When one would aim an arrow fair 
But send it slackly from the string ; 
And one would pierce an outer ring, 
And one an inner, here and there : 
And last the master bowman, he 
Would cleave the mark." 

His system of Christian doctrine had no excres- 
cences or distortions — it was full grown and sym- 
metrical. In all and in every part of it, he regarded 
the Word of God as the ultimate source of appeal, 
and accepted nothing for which he could not find 
clear authority in that Word. His theology was 
regarded as thoroughly evangelical. His peculiar 
mental habits gave him great force in the presenta- 
tion of the Divine Law, especially with reference to 
sin and redemption. Here he wielded a weapon of 
terrible weight, and sometimes with fearful effect. 
Wherever he saw the penalties of the Law would 
fall, he dealt his blows with unerring and unsparing 
precision ; and while indicating that Law, he knew 
nothing of mercy, and took nothing from its weight 
or its edge by confusing justice with compassion. 
He could concentrate his whole power of thought 
upon his subject and hold his hearers to it ; and so 



48 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

when he was dealing with sin and the sinner, and 
arraigning him for his transgression, and uncovering 
his guilt before the spotless purity of God, there 
was, at times, something awful in the manner in 
which he would demonstrate that guilt, and hang the 
terrible condemnation above a sinner's head. His 
appeals to the conscience were overwhelmingly con- 
vincing, and left a sinning man no alternative but 
immediate and unconditional submission to God. 
His views of the atonement were clear and effective, 
and he loved to preach Christ as the sinner's friend ; 
but the schoolmaster he chiefly employed to bring 
him to Christ was the Law. Consequently, that 
very large class — such minds as are at once repelled 
by denunciation — were not controlled by him ; but 
a very large class — such as needed to be aroused 
by a shock that would move their entire being — 
were arrested by his faithful and pungent appeals, 
and multitudes were saved by his words. 

Dr. Wood was not what is known as a popular 
preacher. He had not the personal magnetism 
which is indispensable for such an one ; and there 
must be added to this — what has already been 
noticed — his denunciatory method in preaching. 
To appreciate and understand him fully it was neces- 
sary to become familiar with his method. Only in 
exceptional instances would he make his best im- 
pression upon one hearing him for the first time. 



MEMORIAL DISCOURSE. 49 

Perhaps, too, he required of his hearers a depth of 
thought and a closeness of attention that the popular 
mind was not willing, in his day, to give. The food 
he provided was meat too strong ; and the religious 
dyspepsia of the times rejected this for lighter and 
less substantial food. It can be affirmed with strict 
truth that, among all the sermons he preached, and 
all the productions of his pen which he gave to the 
public, during his ministry of almost thirty years, 
there was not one that could be characterized as 
weak, or trivial, or barren of thought. The judg- 
ment of Professor O. L. Castle, of Shurtleff College, 
would, doubtless, be that of every one of Dr. Wood's 
critical hearers : " He never preached a sermon 
while with us — a period of six years — that was 
not more than an ordinary production." He was a 
preacher whom scholars heard with delight, and one 
by whom the Church of God was defended and 
strengthened, and lost men were saved. 

It would be a grateful and an easy task to extend 
this Memorial beyond the limits which have been 
contemplated in this instance ; but however ex- 
tended it might be made, the sum of it would be 
that of a Christian life of large success, and of a 
character of great excellence. 

Dr. Wood began his life in comparative obscurity, 
and by the force of his character won a name among 

G 



50 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

the best men of his denomination. He was one of 
the staunchest champions of evangelical truth, and 
was, it is believed, never the defeated party in any 
contest for the truth he defended. He was a suc- 
cessful pastor, serving, as such, four of the promi- 
nent churches in Maine, and one in Illinois — two 
of these being churches immediately connected with 
Baptist colleges. In all these he was instrumental 
in gathering large numbers into the churches — many 
of them being students in the colleges, and not a 
few of the latter becoming ministers of the Gospel. 
And, above all and sanctifying all, was this — he was 
a devout Christian, an unassuming servant of Christ, 
a man of faith and of much prayer, and an honor to 
the Church of Christ — stainless in his character, 
and true to the last. " The last of earth" for him 
was singularly characteristic of all his life, which was 
one of earnest effort and often painful struggling, — 
a life in which he held the attitude of one tenaciously 
clinging to his course of dutiful labor — of one who 
was never in haste to give up a good and cherished 
purpose. In just this manner he passed through 
the final scene of earthly struggling. He clung 
to service till a stronger hand than his own undid 
his hold upon the plow to which he had put his 
hand. Some of his last hours were like so many in 
his life — hours of suffering ; but they had their 
ending, like many other passages in his life, in 



MEMORIAL DISCOURSE. 51 

supreme triumph — just such as a battle-worn war- 
rior should have. His last night was one of feverish 
restlessness ; 

u But when the sun, in all his state, 
Illumed the eastern skies, 
He passed through glory's morning gate, 
And walked in Paradise." 

And while he goes on in the eternal service and 
praise before the throne of God, and the following 
of the Lamb, and the never hungering, never thirst- 
ing, tearless, dwelling with the Father, we will 
remember how he lived, and how he labored, and 
follow on to our time, in the way of earthly toil for 
God. 



SERMONS. 



SERMON I. 



THE CHRISTIAN ALTERNATIVE: JESUS THE 
MESSIAH, OR JESUS THE IMPOSTOR. 



SOME SAID, HE IS A GOOD MAN : OTHERS SAID, NAY ; 
BUT HE DECEIVETH THE PEOPLE. JOHN VII. 12. 

There could be no neutral ground between these 
parties. It was necessary to take the position, either 
that Jesus was all he claimed to be, and a good man, 
or that he was a deceiver and a bad man. There 
was very much of too positive a character in his pre- 
tensions to allow of any other conclusion. So clear, 
so full, so explicit were his teachings and claims, that 
his hearers could find no consistent course, save to 
receive him unreservedly or to reject him utterly. 

The same necessity is upon us. 

All those compromises by which men have sought 
to adjust their favorite views to the character and 
teachings of Jesus, or rather, in which they have 
sought to adjust his character and teachings to their 
views, are vain. He has presented himself before 



4 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

the world in too positive a light, and has spoken of 
his relations to God and man in terms too positive, 
to allow other alternative than that of cordially re- 
ceiving him, and yielding implicit assent to his teach- 
ings, as infallible truth, or of utterly rejecting him as 
an impostor. An impostor is one who makes pre- 
tension to character and authority to which he has 
no rightful claim ; one who teaches for truth what 
he knows to be falsehood. Whether these claims or 
doctrines are set forth in direct language, or are the 
legitimate inferences from the individual's acts and 
words, it matters not ; if they are false, he is an 
impostor. The Jews accused Jesus of being a de- 
ceiver. It is proposed to notice some of his claims 
and teachings which must be accepted as divine 
truth, if we would not assent to the justice of this 
accusation. That Jesus knew what his own character 
was, and what his relations to man and God were ; 
that he had clear views of what he taught for the 
truth ; and that he knew perfectly what impressions 
his words and deeds were fitted to give and did give, 
we may safely assume. 

If he did give false impressions of his character, or 
teach false doctrines, directly or indirectly, he did so 
knowingly, purposely, and is justly chargeable with 
deception. We present then the alternative. 

i. Was Jesus the Messiah, of whose coming and 
character, through nearly a score of centuries, proph- 
ets spake, or was he an impostor f Respecting his 
own teachings and pretensions we do not admit that 
there can be doubt in the mind of a candid reader of 
the gospel narrative. Jesus did not discourse like a 



SERMONS. 5 

Kant, a Hamilton, or a Cousin, to philosophers in a 
philosophical style, which only a philosophical mind 
can comprehend ; nor did he speak to persons who 
were accustomed, like German mythical interpreters, 
to look for a hidden, curious, fanciful meaning in 
every sentence ; but he spoke chiefly to the plain, 
unlettered multitude, the common people who heard 
him gladly, and who, he knew, would take the most 
obvious meaning of his words for the true one, and 
would neither suspeci nor hunt for uncommon inter- 
pretations. We may assume as a general rule, that 
the ideas which common readers get from an unbi- 
ased perusal of his words are the ideas he meant to 
convey. We repeat, then, no honest man can fail to 
understand his claims. 

He declared himself the Messiah of the prophets. 
Of John the Baptist, his forerunner, who announced 
himself "the voice of one crying in the wilderness, 
Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths 
straight,"- 1 — thus claiming the ancient prophecy — 
Jesus also added his testimony, saying to the multi- 
tudes, " This is he of whom it is written, Behold I 
send my messenger before thy face, who shall pre- 
pare thy way before thee." When Jesus demanded 
of his disciples whom they took him to be, Peter 
answered, " Thou art the Christ, the Son of the 
living God," and Jesus approved his saying. To the 
Jews he said, " Search the Scriptures ; for in them 
ye think ye have eternal life ; and they are they 
which testify of me." And, again — "Had ye be- 
lieved Moses ye would have believed me : for he 
wrote of me." Again he declares — " All things 



6 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man 
shall be accomplished." " All things must be ful- 
filled which were written in the law of Moses, in the 
prophets and in the psalms concerning me." When 
challenged by the high priest to answer whether he 
were the Christ, the Son of the Blessed, he answered 
"I am." To the two going to Emmaus, ''beginning 
at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto 
them in all the Scriptures the things concerning him- 
self." Thus plainly did he announce himself as Mes- 
siah ; and of his extraordinary character and relations 
to God and man he gave equally clear teachings. "A 
greater than Solomon is here," said he on one occa- 
sion. On another, when he had been speaking of 
his character and works, the cavillers exclaimed, 
"Art thou greater than our father Abraham, which is 
dead ? and the prophets that are dead ? whom mak- 
est thou thyself?" — he plainly signified his supe- 
riority to them all, concluding by the extraordinary 
assertion : " Before Abraham was, I am." 

He declared himself to be the " only begotten Son 
of God," whom he gave, that those believing on him 
might not perish, but have everlasting life. Em- 
phatically did he announce his own preexistence in a 
past eternity. "And now," are the words of his 
prayer, " O Father, glorify thou me, with thine own 
self, with the glory I had with thee before the world 
was." He claimed to be the only one that could 
reveal the Father, and because of his peculiar rela- 
tions to him ; " No one knoweth the Son but the 
Father ; neither knoweth any one the Father but the 
Son and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him." 



SERMONS. 7 

He taught that he was himself the only medium of 
access to the Father. " No man cometh to the 
Father but by me." Such power too he claimed as 
none other ever did. "All power is given unto me 
in heaven and in earth." Thus might we proceed 
with the particulars concerning the extraordinary 
character and relations to which he made pre- 
tension, for every reader of gospel history knows 
that they are found on every page of the sacred 
narrative. 

We know that he did claim directly, and allowed 
the inference to be drawn from his acts and words 
by his disciples and the multitudes, that he was the 
Messiah foretold by the prophets, and that as such 
he was above and unlike all other men, the infallible 
Teacher, the Supreme Lord of all. The alternative 
is forced upon us, either to admit the truth and jus- 
tice of this claim, or to charge him with wicked 
imposture. In no way can we compromise the mat- 
ter, and leave him in possession of a character of 
virtue, honesty, or veracity, if we deny these claims. 

Do the Parkers, Newmans, Renans, say, " He is a 
good man, a very superior man, but nothing more, 

— possessed of no power, authority, knowledge or 
relations beyond what other holy men may possibly 
attain ?" We reply, " Nay, he deceiveth the people," 

— he cannot be a good man. He claims to be Mes- 
siah, to have existed before creation, to have all 
power, and many other like things. If he did live in 
glory with the Father before the world was, he knows 
it ; if he did not dwell thus with the Father in glory 
he knows it, and knows all the rest of his claims 



5 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

associated with this false one to be false also ; and 
he is thus made out an arrant impostor. Tell us not 
he is a good man if you deny him the character and 
relations he claims. All our ideas of righteousness 
must be reversed, ere we can admit it. With far 
greater propriety may you tell us that Mahomet was 
a good man, for he never laid claim to such a char- 
acter and to such power as Christ. We can find 
good ground for adopting the theory that he was a 
religious enthusiast, misled by his spiritual fancies 
and dreams, and still retain some respect for his 
character ; for he did not profess to speak on his 
own high authority, but as he was taught by the 
angel of the Cave ; nor did he pretend to work mir- 
acles in confirmation of his prophetic character, but 
appealed to his visions and revelations. 

Jesus, on the contrary, spake as one that had 
authority and infallibility, not derived but inherent, 
— belonging to him by virtue of his relation to the 
Supreme God. " I am in the Father and the Father 
in me." In proof of this he wrought, or pretended 
to work, the many mighty miracles of which the rec- 
ord is in the gospels. "If I do not the works of my 
Father, believe me not/' was his challenge to his 
foes; " but if I do, though ye believe not me, believe 
the works, that ye may know and believe that the 
Father is in me and I in him." And at the close of 
his career of miraculous working, he declared of his 
rejectors, " If I had not done among them the works 
which none other man did, they had not had sin ; 
but now have they both seen and hated both me and 
my Father." This was their especial guilt, that they 



SERMONS. 9 

had rejected him, notwithstanding his mighty mira- 
cles wrought before them in confirmation of his Mes- 
siahship. 

Surely the men of our day, who deny Christ's 
claim to infallible authority, and denounce as fabu- 
lous the miraculous working given in confirmation of 
it, must be gifted with the knowledge of a spiritual 
alchemy in itself miraculous, which can discover in 
him still a character honest, just and true. This is, 
indeed, light shining out of darkness, — or rather it 
is darkness itself shining. We leave this point. 

2. Was Jesus divine, or was he an impostor ? 

When God made known himself to Moses, he used 
this language : "I am that I am," and bade him 
declare to the Hebrews in Egyptian bondage, "I am 
hath sent me unto you." When Jesus replied to the 
cavilling Jews concerning his character and authority 
he used this title, by which Jehovah would be known, 
saying : "Before Abraham was I am." What idea 
must the Jews have attached to these sacred terms 
by which Jehovah had declared his self-existent God- 
head to their great captain and prophet ? and how 
must they have regarded the claims of one who thus 
boldly applied them to himself? We will not dwell 
on this. 

In the commencement of this article, it was re- 
marked, that he who willingly allows to be attributed 
to himself a character that does not rightfully belong 
to him, is as justly branded a deceiver as he who 
positively claims it. How was it with Jesus ? In the 
early part of his public ministry, he chose twelve 
disciples whom he admitted to the closest intimacy 



IO . NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

and most unreserved intercourse. He instructed 
them continually in respect to his own character and 
relations, and both before and after his death and 
resurrection made known to them the important 
things of his kingdom. Once he asked his disciples, 
"Who say ye that I am?" — and Peter answered, 
" Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." 
Christ did not make any correction of this answer, 
but replied, " Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona ; for 
flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but 
my Father which is in heaven." At another time he 
talked with them familiarly and tenderly of the 
Father, and Philip said unto him, " Show us the 
Father and it sufficeth us." Christ replied, " Have J 
been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not 
known me, Philip ? He that hath seen me hath 
seen the Father, and how sayest thou then, show us 
the Father?" 

The context in which these words occur strength- 
ens the conviction that the natural interpretation is 
the correct one, and that Jesus intended to claim 
divinity by the use of them. Conceive of Peter 
in the house of Cornelius, or Paul upon Mars Hill, 
or John among his " little children" at Ephesus say- 
ing, " He that sees me sees God ;" and would not the 
language be blasphemy upon their lips ? 

We are not surprised, that after the miracle of the 
resurrection — the accomplishment of which by his 
own power Jesus foretold to his disciples — had been 
fully proved to the doubting Thomas, he should 
yield to overwhelming evidence and announce his 
faith, in the words, " My Lord and my God." But 



SERMONS. II 

we are astonished out of measure that Jesus did 
not correct the error, if it was not his desire that 
his disciples should regard him as their Lord and 
their God. He surely knew what ideas of his 
divine character his disciples were receiving, and he 
surely knew that his words were fitted to confirm 
them in their belief. He taught them that he 
and his Father were one, and promised when he 
departed to send the divine Spirit to abide with 
them and guide them into truth. " He shall take of 
the things of mine and show them unto you." He 
assured them that all power in heaven and earth was 
his, and commanded them to go and proclaim the 
gospel in his name, and baptize the converts in the 
name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the 
Holy Ghost. The Father is God ; the Holy Ghost 
is God ; and is the Son, whose name is thus associ- 
ated on equal terms with these divine names, less 
than God ? He bade them offer their prayers in his 
name, with the assurance that he would answer and 
that the Father would answer ; thus placing himself 
on an equality with God as the hearer of prayer. 
" Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name I will do it." 
" Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name he 
will give it you." 

He promised to be with them alway even unto the 
end of the world ; thus assuming omnipresence, as 
before he had asserted his omnipotence. Now, if 
these disciples believed that Jesus spoke the truth, 
and that he did possess all these attributes to which 
he laid claim directly and assumed indirectly in 
these teachings and promises, and which he allowed 



12 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

others to ascribe to him without contradiction, what 
inference might we expect, them to draw ? 

What inference they did draw, we well know ; for 
what doctrine they subsequently taught, we know. 
Peter, who answered Christ's question, "Who say 
ye that I am ?" has shown us what he received as the 
truth, for in his epistle he has styled him " God and 
our Saviour Jesus Christ;" 1 and John, the beloved, 
who surely drank in from his Master the pure truth, 
in the beginning of his gospel declares, " In the 
beginning was the Word (Christ), and the Word 
(Christ) was with God, and the Word (Christ) was 
God." 

W T ith emphasis says he again, "This is the true 
God and eternal life." Had not Jesus reason to 
expect that such would be the inference of his disci- 
ples from his acts and words ? That his language 
was capable of such construction he certainly knew, 
and that his disciples had heard such inference drawn 
from his words he also knew. John records that on 
two occasions, the Jews understood him to claim 
divinity and accused him of blasphemy because of it, 
saying once, "Thou being man makest thyself God," 
and again, that " he made himself equal with God." 
And yet he never cautioned his disciples against 
such inference. He never told them to beware of 
the error of attributing to him divinity. He bade 
them "Take heed and beware of the leaven of the 
Pharisees and Sadducees," but never did he say, 
" Take heed and beware of idolatry in paying to me 

i In the Bible Union's Version, and also in marginal reference of 
Common Version, " Our God and Saviour Jesus Christ." 



SERMONS. 1 3 

honor that belongs only to God." On the contrary, 
he did emphatically declare it to be " the will of the 
Father that all men should honor the Son even as 
they honor the Father." Never did he refuse the 
worship offered him, nor give the slightest caution 
to those disciples, to hinder them and his church, 
through all succeeding time, from falling into the 
fatal error of paying him divine homage, and thus 
breaking Jehovah's first great command. If Christ 
was not divine, and yet allowed his disciples under 
his own instruction to embrace this error, was he not 
a deceiver ? If he knew the future history of his 
church, and saw that universally, through succeeding 
centuries, the false doctrines of his divinity, which 
his rejectors charged him with assuming, would be 
received from his own words, and still uttered not 
one clear positive warning to keep his church from 
this idolatry, how can we reconcile it with a character 
of truth and righteousness ? And surely the known 
fact that the wisest, and best, and most ardently 
devoted of his disciples, have, with such unanimity, 
through eighteen centuries, inferred from his teach- 
ings this doctrine, is of itself an overwhelming proof 
that it is a most natural inference, and an inference 
so natural, that, if false, one so wise as Christ 
claimed to be ought to have foreseen and provided 
against it by some word of caution. 

He foresaw and predicted that men would dislike 
his truth ; he foresaw and predicted that multitudes 
would refuse the -honor due to him; he foresaw and 
predicted that they would array themselves in hostil- 
ity against his people, and pursue them with perse- 



14 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

cuting rage ; he foresaw and predicted that many of 
his professed followers would fall away and forsake 
him ; but nowhere do we see manifested on his part 
the least suspicion that his disciples would ever be 
in danger of paying him too much honor, or that his 
church would ever fall into the sin of idolatry by 
offering him the worship due to God alone. Tell 
us, denier of Christ's divinity, Was he ignorant or 
was he perverse ? 

We have alluded to the inference of the unfriendly 
Jews. Let us look a little more closely, and we shall 
see — if this was a false inference — how forcibly 
ought the necessity of cautioning his disciples to 
have presented itself to his mind, if he would secure 
them from idolatry. 

On one occasion Jesus had said, " I and my Fa- 
ther are one ;" and the Jews for this sought to slay 
him. " Many good works," said Jesus, " have I 
shown you of my Father ; for which of these works 
do ye stone me ?" Their answer was, " For a good 
work we stone thee not, but for blasphemy, and be- 
cause thou being a man makest thyself God." Again, 
they sought to slay him because he had done a mira- 
cle on the Sabbath day. Jesus answered them, "My 
Father worketh hitherto and I work." "Therefore 
the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he had 
not only broken the Sabbath, but said that God was 
his Father, making himself equal with God." From 
these accounts it is manifest that calling God his Fa- 
ther, or calling himself the Son of God, was deemed, 
by these enemies, equivalent to a claim of divinity. 

Bearing this in mind, let us look upon the scene 



SERMONS. 15 

before the Sanhedrim. After they had sought in 
vain for evidence against him, and were almost in 
despair of accomplishing their purpose to condemn 
him, the high priest stands up and puts Christ under 
a solemn oath, saying. " I adjure thee by the living 
God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, 
the Son of the living God." Thus adjured, Jesus 
replied, " I am," and added the declaration that here- 
after they should see him coming in his power and 
glory. Thereupon the high priest rent his clothes, 
saying, " He hath spoken blasphemy," and the coun- 
cil gave their voice, " He is guilty of death." The 
law of Moses denounced death upon the blasphemer, 
and urging Pilate to give sentence against him, they 
said, " We have a law, and by our law he ought to 
die, because he made himself the Son of God." 1 
Now as we have seen that Jesus knew what mean- 
ing, on previous occasions, his enemies attached to 
the phrase " Son of God," can we doubt that he 
intentionally allowed them to understand him to 
claim divinity ? Answering the question according 
to the known meaning of the questioner, did he not 
positively affirm his divinity ? And if he was not 
divine, how can the justice of the sentence be im- 

1 It is a noteworthy fact that John, who makes record of the two 
occasions when the Jews accused Jesus of claiming divinity, is the only 
evangelist who gives this accusation before Pilate. And when we 
reflect how his mind must have been impressed with these facts ; that 
he had heard Jesus charged with making such claim ; that he had heard 
him under adjuration acknowledge and avow the claim ; that he had seen 
him condemned to death on the charge of such claim, and had heard 
the justice of the verdict asserted by his judges before Pilate, we are 
not surprised at the opening sentence of his Gospel, " In the beginning 
was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." 



10 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

pugned which according to the law of Moses con- 
demned him to death ? And how can we find fault 
with the epithet which they afterward applied to him 
— "this deceiver." 

But if the enemies of Jesus drew a false inference 
from his words, how could he help to see the neces- 
sity of cautioning his disciples, if he would not have 
them fall into the same error ? Yet he uttered not 
a syllable of caution. 

We say then, if Jesus was willing that both friends 
and enemies should understand him to claim divinity, 
and yet was not divine, he was a deceiver, such as 
beside him the world has never known. We are 
fully aware of the startling nature of this alternative ; 
but there it is and we must meet it — Jesus divine, 
or Jesus an impostor ! 

3 . Is Jesus the only one through whom men can be 
saved from their sins, or has he deceived the world in 
this vital matter ? 

What he taught is manifest. He did claim to be 
the Saviour of men. "The Son of Man came to 
seek and to save that which was lost." He taught 
that such is the character of the race through sin 
that, " except a man be born again he cannot see 
the kingdom of God ;" that God, looking on the con- 
dition of sinners was moved with compassion, and 
" so loved the world that he gave his only begotten 
Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not 
perish but have everlasting life." So, in his estima- 
tion, the world was lost and needed him for a Sav- 
iour. There are those who speak of Jesus in the 
highest terms of praise as a good man and a great 



SERMONS. 17 

teacher, but ignore entirely his peculiar relations as 
a Saviour. Such go in the face of his own words. 
He did most emphatically teach, in the fullest, clear- 
est, most positive terms, that he was necessary to 
the redemption of the world, and that it could not 
be saved without him. 

" I came down from heaven, not to do my own 
will, but the will of him that sent me. And this is 
the Father's will that hath sent me, that of all which 
he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should 
raise it up again at the last day." " I am the way, 
the truth, and the life." " No man cometh unto the 
Father but by me." "I am the door ; by me if any 
man enter in he shall be saved." " I am the resur- 
rection and the life." " I am come that men might 
have life." In such a strain did he constantly speak, 
ever teaching that the hope and dependence of the 
world for salvation was in him, and warning men to 
make sure of life by believing in him. " Labor not 
for the meat that perisheth, but for the meat that 
endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of 
Man shall give unto you." "Whosoever drinketh 
the water that I shall give him shall never thirst." 
" I give unto them eternal life ; and they shall never 
perish ; neither shall any pluck them out of my 
hand." From these multiplied teachings what could 
his disciples learn but this ? — that he was the only 
Saviour from sin, and they only could expecl salva- 
tion who should receive him. Let any one read 
carefully all his teachings to the twelve — especially 
those recorded in the latter chapters of John, where 
he sets forth the closeness of relationship between 

K 



18 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

himself and his disciples, tells of the benefits he 
does and will confer upon them, speaks of the 
sacrifice he is to offer for them and its necessity, 
and points them to the blessed mansions of rest 
which he will, in his love and by his own power, 
prepare for them — and he will see the reasons they 
had to believe that Jesus was their Saviour. 

And when, as they stood on Mt. Olivet, whence 
he ascended on high, they received from his lips the 
last great commission, which bade them go into all 
the world and to every creature proclaim that who- 
soever believed in* him should be saved, and whoso- 
ever believed not in him should be damned, how 
completely must they have been confirmed in the 
belief that salvation was in him alone. That they 
were fixed in this belief, we have abundant evidence. 
When the day of Pentecost came and they went 
forth under the guidance of the divine Spirit to 
preach to the multitude, this was the doctrine they 
proclaimed. When the thousands pricked in the 
heart began to tremble in view of their lost condi- 
tion, and to cry out to Peter and the rest of the 
apostles — ''What shall we do?" — the answer was 
ready, and was given in no hesitating uncertain lan- 
guage, but in clear decided terms — "Repent and be 
baptized every one of you, in the name of Jesus 
Christ, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive 
the gift of the Holy Ghost." And when subse- 
quently Peter and John were brought before the 
Sanhedrim for preaching in the name of Jesus, they 
there made confession of their faith, declaring him 
to be the Saviour: "Neither is there salvation in 



SERMONS. 19 

any other; for there is none other name under 
heaven given among men whereby we must be 
saved." This they ever taught: "We have seen 
and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be 
the Saviour of the world." It appears thus that the 
words of Jesus were calculated to convey to his 
hearers the idea that the world was lost in sin, and 
he only could save it ; and this was the idea they did 
receive, and Jesus knew this to be the idea they 
received ; nor may we question that this was the 
idea he meant they should receive. Unless it be 
the truth, that Jesus Christ is the only Saviour of 
the world, and without him there is no hope to the 
guilty sons of men, we must set him down as the 
great impostor of history. 

4. Is the death of Jesus necessary in order to pro- 
vide a deliverance from the curse of the law for those 
who trust in him, or has he deceived the world, in this 
respect f 

"We are saved by Christ's life and teaching, by 
imitating his example, by obeying his precepts, not 
by his vicarious suffering. We need no atonement 
to deliver us from penalties. Penitence and reforma- 
tion will secure pardon." Are these true statements? 
That we cannot be- saved without renouncing sin ■ — 
without striving to conform to the precepts and 
example of Christ — is true, and on this would we 
lay great emphasis ; but is this all ? 

Is there no penalty for past transgression to be 
remitted, which could not be remitted had not Christ 
died for our sins and risen again for our justification? 
Was it not a necessity that he should suffer, the just 



20 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

for the unjust, that sinners might have pardon, that 
God might be just and the justifier of those that 
believe in him? If this be not so, then we see no 
way to avoid the conclusion that Jesus has deceived 
us. His teachings seem not equivocal, nor did his 
hearers so regard them, especially the chosen disci- 
ples who in their writings have given us the impres- 
sions they received. It is recorded, by John, that a 
Rabbi came to Jesus, on one occasion, to inquire 
concerning his doctrine. Jesus began by declar- 
ing to him the absolute necessity of the great 
moral change of the new birth, the work of the 
divine Spirit. Then, proceeding to speak of him- 
self and his mission, he declares his advent from 
heaven and makes known its necessity for the 
salvation of men. And to illustrate his relation 
to men as their Saviour, he uses the following 
language: "And as Moses lifted up the serpent 
in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be 
lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him should not 
perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the 
world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that who- 
soever believeth in him should not perish but have 
everlasting life." He presents himself on the cross, 
holding such relation to guilty men, as the brazen 
serpent held to the poisoned Israelites. As they 
looked and lived, or refusing died, so must men 
look to Christ on the cross for salvation from sin, or 
refusing die eternally. If Jesus does not mean here 
to present himself on the cross as the only hope of 
the world, if he does not teach that in this vicarious 
sacrifice is the great love of God seen providing sal- 



SERMONS. 21 

vation, then may we cease to trust language for the 
conveyance of ideas. And what mean these words 
of his? — "The Son of Man came not to be minis- 
tered unto but to minister, and to give his life a 
ransom for many." "To give his life." How did 
Jesus give his life? By the death on Calvary. "A 
ransom for many." And was that a ransom? So he 
declares. And what is a ransom? A price paid to 
deliver some one from thraldom, from penalties, from 
suffering. Jesus then gave his life as a price for the 
redemption of man from the penalty of sin. "I lay 
down my life for the sheep ; I have power to lay it 
down and I have power to take it again." No won- 
der that his disciples, with such language of their 
Master in their remembrance, should find a fitness in 
the address of the apostle, — "Ye are bought with a 
price." No wonder that Peter should declare, ".Ye 
know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible 
things as silver and gold, but with the precious 
blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and 
without spot." 

Frequently did Jesus converse with his chosen 
twelve concerning his death, and most plainly did he 
make known its necessity, but never more clearly 
and tenderly than on the night of his betrayal. The 
scenes of the Last Supper and of Gethsemane can 
be rationally interpreted only by the doctrine of a 
vicarious atonement. As we have looked upon the 
scene oi Jesus in the garden, and have seen him 
there alone on his bended knees beneath those dark 
olives, praying, "O my father if it be possible, let 
this cup pass from me," and have contemplated his 



22 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

passion, his soul in agony, his physical frame bowed 
in the extremity of suffering, his holy brow weeping 
as it were great drops of blood falling down to the 
ground, in view of the cross, involuntarily has the 
exclamation arisen, what a protest is here against 
the saying of many that his death was that of a 
martyr only, not necessary for the salvation of men ! 
Must we acquiesce in the conclusion of Parker, that 
Jesus gave way to weakness here, and exhibited a 
lack of that fortitude shown by many of his own 
confessors, who without shrinking have met death 
in like form and in forms as terrible, and rejoiced 
that they were counted worthy to suffer in his name? 
No; Jesus was not weak, nor did his imagination 
invest that cross with an agony greater than belonged 
to it. It was not the giving of his life only, but the 
giving of his life a ransom for many, the view of 
which extorted from his soul those cries of anguish. 

Jesus saw clearly and appreciated fully what to us 
is an infinite mystery of vicarious suffering, in that 
death to which in anticipation he submitted with the 
prayer, "O my father, if this cup may not pass from 
me except I drink it, thy will be done." He saw it 
was not possible to fulfil his great mission of love 
and let this cup pass from him. 

Had he not drank that cup, how entirely that 
precious ordinance, which a few hours before he had 
instituted, would have lost all its significance ! "With 
desire," said he to the twelve, "have I desired to eat 
this passover with you before I suffer. For I say 
unto you, I will not any more eat thereof until it be 
fulfilled in the kingdom of God." Christ himself 



SERMONS. 23 

was the paschal lamb, in whose slaying the type was 
about to be fulfilled. In such a strain was he 
addressing them. Then, "he took bread, blessed 
and brake it, and gave to his disciples, and said, 
'Take, eat, this is my body.' And he took the cup, 
and gave thanks, and gave to them saying, "Drink 
ye all of it ; for this is my blood of the New Testa- 
ment, which is shed for many for the remission 
of sins." 

Was there no emphatic vicarious value in that 
death, thus to be commemorated throughout the 
history of the church by this ordinance? Why did 
he mark this of all the events of his earthly mission, 
alone to be kept in lively remembrance among his 
disciples by a special commemorative ceremony? 
How must those apostles have viewed it afterwards, 
when, calling to mind his many teachings concerning 
the necessity of his death, they partook of these 
emblems of it and repeated the words — "This is 
my body given for you:" "This cup is the New 
Testament in my blood shed for you?" Did these 
disciples from that time, never look with peculiar 
interest to that blood, nor feel that it was indeed 
shed for them, to take away their sin? What Peter 
believed we have seen in his words already quoted. 
How the beloved John, who at this supper leaned on 
Jesus' breast, received his words, we know by this 
subsequent declaration — "The blood of Jesus Christ 
his Son cleanseth us from all sin." If these apostles 
did not, at that very hour, fully comprehend his 
words and acts, they afterwards did. After his res- 
urrection, he appeared to them and said, "These 



24 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

are the words which I spake unto you while I was 
yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled which 
were written in the law of Moses, and in the 
prophets, and in the Psalms concerning me. Then 
opened he their understandings that they might 
understand the Scriptures," and said unto them, 
"Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ 
to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: 
and that repentance and remission of sins might 
be preached in his name among all nations, begin- 
ning at Jerusalem. And ye are witnesses of these 
things." And so have they been witnesses of these 
things, and have taught in unmistakable language 
what they learned from their Lord. "For," saith 
Peter, "Christ hath once suffered for sins the just 
for the unjust that he might bring us to God." 
"Who his own self bare our sins in his own body 
on the tree, that we being dead to sins should live 
unto righteousness, by whose stripes ye were healed." 
Who bare our sins? Jesus Christ. How? In his 
body. Where? On the tree. To what end? That 
we being dead to sins should live unto righteous- 
ness, that by his stripes we might be healed. In 
Peter's estimation, the cross is man's only hope. 
Can we blame him for drawing such an inference 
from such teachings of his Master? And when 
John, in his vision, heard the song of the redeemed 
in heaven — "Unto him that loved us, and washed 
us from our sins in his own blood, and made us 
kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him 
be glory and dominion forever and ever" — he did 
not hesitate to record it as setting forth the true 



SERMONS. 25 

value of Christ's death ; and why should he, after 
listening to such words from his lips ? When Paul 
takes up the word and declares, "Christ hath 
redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made 
a curse for us," we know from what teaching of 
Jesus he drew such conclusions. And when we 
know that the church through all the centuries 
has held " the cross, the cross, ever the cross," to 
be the grand feature of the gospel, fitted to attract 
the attention, to fix the regards, to give hope, to 
draw out the trust and affections of believers, we 
can see plainly from whose blessed lips they have 
received instruction. To the opposer of this great 
doctrine of Christ's vicarious suffering, we will not 
now dogmatically declare — it is true and you must 
receive it ; but we will fearlessly assert that if it be 
not true, then the apostles of the Lord, the early 
disciples, and the vast multitudes of Christ's true, 
faithful followers, through the lone line of centuries, 
have been deceived, and the plain teaching of Jesus 
has deceived them, and you may choose your alterna- 
tive. Do you say, "he is a good man, but his death 
has no vicarious value?" "Nay," is our response, 
"but he deceiveth the people." He has deceived me 
— he has deceived my brother and my sister — he has 
deceived the multitudes who during the pentecostal 
outpourings of the past years have put their trust in 
him and found peace — he has deceived the churches 
throughout Christendom which are now placing their 
hopes upon that death — he has deceived the myri- 
ads who through generations past have drawn their 
hopes of heaven, their motives to holy endeavor, 

L 



26 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

their power to triumph over trial and death from the 
cross — he has deceived his apostles; for to us all 
has he said, as, again and again, in obedience to his 
own command, we have come around his table to 
commemorate his suffering and death, — ''This is my 
body given for you " — "This cup is the New Tes- 
tament in my blood shed for many for the remission 
of sins." 

If we have believed a lie Jesus Christ has taught 
it to us. 

5. Has Jesus power to forgive sins, so that his 
word * of promise, "Him that cometh to me, I will 
in no wise cast out',' is sufficient to secure salvation to 
every one that trusts in it, or is he an impostor ? 

That he claimed this power is manifest. Once he 
said to the sick of the palsy, " Son, thy sins are 
forgiven thee:" and when the bystanders murmured, 
saying, " Who hath power to forgive sins but God 
only ? " he demonstrated his rightful claim to such 
power by working a miracle before them, bidding 
the sick of the palsy to arise, take up his bed and 
go to his own house, and giving him strength to 
obey. To the woman in the Pharisee's house he 
said, "Thy sins are forgiven thee;" and when they 
murmured he added, "Thy faith hath saved thee, 
go in peace." " My sheep hear my voice, and I 
know them and they follow me, and I give unto 
them eternal life, and they shall never perish, 
neither shall any pluck them out of my hand." 
Can one rightfully use such language, in whom 
dwells not the prerogative to forgive sin and grant 
salvation ? 



SERMONS. 27 

To his chosen disciples he ever spoke as one who 
had power and authority to do for them whatever 
they needed ; and when about to leave them, he 
addressed to them words fitted to heighten their 
confidence in his ability and love, to the utmost. 
"Let not your hearts be troubled; ye believe in God, 
believe also in Me. In my Father's house are many 
mansions ; I go to prepare a place for you." The 
perfect confidence thus challenged, the apostles ever 
exercised, ascribing to him forgiveness of sins and 
eternal salvation. If now Jesus is a mere man, and 
has not the power which he has so positively 
claimed, and which his apostles led by his teaching 
have ascribed to him, then has he been guilty of the 
most infamous imposture of which the human mind 
is capable of conceiving. It is the veriest folly to 
pretend to have respect for a character such as his is 
made to appear, for he has been guilty of a double 
crime against humanity and against God, which no 
creature beside, either man or spirit, has ever 
equalled. 

Upon the man Tetzel with his merchandise of 
popish pardons and indulgences, we can waste no 
deeper feeling than contempt, — his employers we 
indignantly condemn, and his poor ignorant victims* 
we both pity and despise ; but of the deception of this 
man Jesus if only a man human speech can convey no 
conception, or of the intensity of the soul's emotions 
as we view it. The wisest and the weakest, the most 
learned and the most ignorant, the noble and the 
serf, every grade of intellect from a giant Paul to a 
semi-idiot, through three-score generations of men, 



28 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

have been his victims. He has spoken to millions 
of souls under the deepest agony of convict-ion for 
sin, and in the most exultant joy of a supposed 
deliverance, in hours of adversity, severest trial, 
utmost peril, and in hours of prosperity, bliss and 
safety, in quiet congregations of peaceful worship- 
pers, and amidst the martyr fires, in " all the 
changing scenes of life," and in the last struggles 
of death, saying, " Come unto me, believe in me, 
I can and will forgive and save," and his voice has 
sounded like the voice of a God mighty to save ; but 
it has been the voice of a weak, deceitful man, 
deluding its victims to the belief in a falsehood 
whose consequences are eternal, by the blasphe- 
mous usurpation of the supreme prerogative of 
Deity. Do you shudder at the application of such 
language to Christ? It is the Christian alternative. 

6. Did Jesus rise from the dead on the third 
day and ascend into heaven, a?td is he now our Medi- 
ator on high, or is he a deceiver ? 

That he predicted his own death, that he declared 
he had power to lay down his life and take it again, 
and would do so ; that he was crucified and laid in 
the sepulchre, are matters of historic record; that he 
appeared afterwards alive, at least ten different times 
to his disciples, talked with them, ate before them, 
bade them test him by touch as well as sight, gave 
them their commission, and promised to be with 
them always in their labors, these his disciples posi- 
tively assert. That he spoke to his disciples of 
ascending to his Father, both before and after his 
resurrection, that he taught them to expect that in 



SERMONS. 29 

his glory he would still be their Saviour and would 
hear and answer their prayers, and that from among 
them he was caught up and passed out of their 
sight, they have testified in the most explicit 
language. 

Were all these appearances real, and all these 
words and promises true and sure, or mere decep- 
tions in word and deed ? This is a question to be 
fairly met, by those who would rightly and honestly 
decide upon the character of Jesus Christ, not to be 
disposed of by a fling or a sneer, as Theodore Par- 
ker disposes of the resurrection on the third day. 
These pretensions are either true or false. If true, 
they establish the character of Jesus as the Lord of 
life and death, the ascended and glorified Redeemer, 
who ever lives a Mediator at the right hand of the 
Father, to hear and answer the prayers of his people. 

If false, then is his character stamped as that of a 
sorcerer, an impostor, whom we ought to reject with 
scorn. 

7. Finally, is there to be a resurrection of the 
dead and a day of judgment, when Jesus Christ will 
assign to all their reward, and receive his saints into 
the glory of the Father, or is he a deceiver ? 

It was his positive declaration, that the Father had 
committed all judgment unto the Son ; and he often 
warned his hearers of the approach of that day when 
all deeds should be tried and rewarded. " He that 
rejecteth me and receiveth not my words hath one 
that judgeth him ; the word that I have spoken the 
same shall judge him in the last day." Most fearful 
language this to the denier of his truth and his 



30 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

claims ; the very word that he rejects shall judge 
him. " Whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of 
my words, in this adulterous and sinful generation, 
of him also shall the Son of Man be ashamed when 
he cometh in the glory of his Father and of the holy 
angels." " For the hour is coming in the which all 
that are in their graves shall hear his voice and shall 
come forth ; they that have done good unto the 
resurrection of life ; they that have done evil unto 
the resurrection of damnation." Of Chorazin, and 
Bethsaida, and Capernaum, he declared the sentence 
should be less tolerable, in the day of judgment, 
than of Tyre and Sidon, of Sodom and Gomorrah. 
In that day, many, he also declared, will say unto 
him, "Lord, Lord," — to whom he will reply, "I 
never knew you ; depart, ye that work iniquity." 
He has given a most graphic description of that 
great scene, when, seated on the throne of his glory, 
all nations shall be gathered before him and he shall 
divide them as a shepherd divideth his sheep from 
the goats, and to each party shall assign an everlast- 
ing portion. Let it be kept distinctly in mind that 
Jesus spoke to a people who were believers in the 
doctrine of a final judgment, and what impression 
are we compelled to acknowledge his words fitted to 
leave? What ideas were received by his own apos- 
tles they make plain by their own language. Peter 
speaks plainly of the judgment, telling us that 
the angels that sinned and the unjust are reserved 
unto the day of judgment to be punished. So also 
Jude; and John in the Apocalypse describes the 
scene when all that have lived shall be gathered, 



SERMONS. 31 

and the books shall be opened, and die dead shall 
be judged out of the things written in the books. 
And Paul, taught by Christ, has positively affirmed 
the coming of that judgment. "God hath appointed 
a day, in the which he will judge the world in right- 
eousness by that man whom he hath ordained." 
The same inference that these apostles drew has the 
church ever drawn from Christ's words, and with 
faith in those teachings we who believe do now look 
forward with awe and hope, to that day when "we 
must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ ; 
that every one may receive the things done in his 
body, according to that he hath done, whether it be 
good or bad." 

Has Jesus deceived us all in this great matter and 
awakened idle fears in the minds of men these many 
centuries, or is it indeed true that that day is coming 
"when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven 
with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking ven- 
geance on them that know not God, and that obey 
not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ ?" Here is 
an alternative which the Christian offers. Deny the 
resurrection of the dead and the final judgment, and 
Jesus Christ stands forth a deceiver. 

In our discussion, we have swept over a wide 
range of Christian docirines, and made copious 
quotations from the Holy Word. We could not 
confine ourselves to a narrower compass and do 
justice to the design we have had in view — that of 
exhibiting the alternative with which, as a believer in 
evangelical truth, we would meet the liberalists of 
every school who eulogize the character of Jesus, 



32 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

while they ignore his divine claims and deny the 
fundamental doctrines he taught. "What think ye 
of Christ?" is the question of vital importance. 

No systems of religious belief or doctrine can now 
be set up without taking Christ into the account. 
His history and teaching cannot be ignored. Who- 
ever would reject, evangelical truth and adopt another 
creed, must modify his views of Christ to accord 
therewith. This we observe to be practically the 
truth, and various have been the characters and 
relations assigned to Christ by the believers and 
advocates of false creeds. Our object has been 
to expose the inconsistency of this with the plain 
gospel narrative. Jesus has presented himself to us 
in no equivocal light. His claims in respect to 
character and relations are put forth in such pos- 
itive and decided terms, and under such circum- 
stances as to leave no doubt how he would be 
regarded. 

We must receive him precisely as he presents 
himself, acknowledging the justice of his claims to 
all that is extraordinary in this character and these 
relations, and accepting as truth all his teachings; 
or we must renounce him utterly as an impostor, 
who has deceived men in regard to the most sacred 
duties and relations to their Creator, and the most 
weighty and vital concerns of time and eternity. 
There is no way possible of avoiding this alterna- 
tive. To attempt to do so, by ascribing to Jesus the 
character of an enthusiast, who was self-deluded in 
respect to his pretensions, and verily believed him- 
self possessed of the attributes and powers, and to 



SERMONS. 33 

have wrought the wondrous deeds and to hold the 
relations to Gocl and man, which he claimed, would 
be simple absurdity. No such supposition could be 
entertained by a reasonable mind for a moment, save 
concerning a downright madman ; and surely no one 
will be found mad enough himself, to charge Jesus 
with insanity. 

The calmness and quietness of his demeanor, the 
thorough self-control and presence of mind which 
he exhibited in the most trying positions of his life 
and even in his death, the self-consistency which he 
maintained from the beginning to the end of his 
career, the wisdom, the dignity, the meekness, the 
benevolence, the moral sublimity which appeared in 
all his a6ls and words — acknowledged freely by such 
infidels as Rousseau and Thomas Paine — compel us 
to the conviction that he was not an enthusiast, or if 
so, yet one who thoroughly understood and appreci- 
ated, and was entirely responsible for the meaning 
and force of every word he uttered and every pre- 
tension he put forth. Such is the man who has 
claimed, unequivocally, to be the Messiah of whom 
prophets through a score of centuries spoke, and as 
such to hold relations and possess a character and 
authority such as never did or can belong to 
another ; who has claimed to be divine ; and to 
be the only Saviour of the world ; who has taught 
that his death on the cross was a necessary offer- 
ing without which sin could not have been for- 
given ; who has claimed to have in himself power 
to forgive sin and grant eternal life to all that will 
come to him ; who assured his disciples in positive 

M 



34 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

terms that he would rise from the dead by his own 
power and ascend to heaven there to be the Medi- 
ator of his people ; and fully and distinctly taught 
that at last he would come again to judge the world 
and assign to all their final portion. His chosen 
twelve received and believed these things from his 
mouth, and his church has continued to believe them 
to the present day. Here then are the very words 
of Jesus. They are true or they are false. If true, 
he is our Supreme Lord and Saviour ; if false, he is 
an impostor unworthy of our regard. There is no 
middle ground, no room for compromise. We must 
decide for him or against him. And if we decide 
against him, if with his ancient enemies we deny his 
claims, saying, " Nay; but he deceiveth the people," 
where else shall we find light and hope ? To whom 
shall we go, if he has not the words of eternal life ? 



SERMON II. 



THE RELATION OF THE DIVINITY OF 
CHRIST TO THE ATONEMENT. 

THIS IS THE TRUE GOD AND ETERNAL LIFE. JOHN V. 20. 

The verse from which the text is taken reads thus : 
"And we know that the Son of God is come and 
hath given us an understanding, that we may know 
him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even 
in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and 
eternal life." A more emphatic testimony to the 
divinity of our Lord could not well be given. 

It is alleged, for the purpose of throwing doubt 
upon the argument for Christ's divinity, drawn from 
the frequent application of the title of deity to him, 
by the inspired writers, that the term God is in scrip- 
ture also applied to men. That, in a few instances, it 
is so applied, in the Old Testament — never in the 
New Testament — is true ; but always in such a con- 
nection, or with such qualifications, that there can 
be no mistaking the inferior sense in which it is em- 
ployed. In the eighty-first Psalm, magistrates are 
styled gods ; but there is no possibility of mistaking 
the figurative use of the term. " I have said, ye are 



36 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

gods, but ye shall die like men." When Moses 
delivered to the children of Israel the precept, 
''Thou shalt not revile the gods," (i. <?.,the judges,) 
" nor curse the ruler of thy people," there was no 
danger that they would understand him to claim for 
these rulers divine attributes or even divine powers. 

Moses is called "a god unto Pharaoh," that is, a 
messenger speaking for and with the authority of 
God. Nowhere do we find this term applied to 
man, as a simple title, unqualifiedly, as it is applied 
to Christ. He is called God, without any limitation 
or qualifying phrase, indicating an inferior use of 
the term. The title is given to him, again and again, 
in the same manner as it is given to the Father as if 
of right it belonged to him. And so of right it 
does belong to him. The apostle John, as if to cut 
off all occasion of doubt, and render it impossible to 
question his deity, declares, "This is the true God, 
and eternal life." In an equally unqualified manner 
were all the titles of Jehovah applied to Christ. 

To Christ, too, are all the divine attributes 
ascribed ; to him are attributed all the works of 
God ; to him divine worship is paid by holy men 
and angels ; and he is declared to be equal with the 
Father. We unhesitatingly assert that if the doc- 
trine of the personality of God the Father is taught 
in scripture, then, with equal explicitness, is taught 
the doclrine of the proper deity of the Lord Jesus 
Christ ; for not a name, nor an attribute, nor a 
work, nor an honor, is declared to belong to the 
one, which is not also declared to belong to the 
other. 



SERMONS. 3/ 

Assuming, then, that the deity of Jesus Christ is 
a scriptural doctrine, we propose to inquire if, in 
accepting it, we are not also obliged to accept with 
it the doctrine of the vicarious atonement? Are 
not these two doctrines so related that they must 
and will be received together ? Can it not be made 
to appear that the doctrine of Christ's deity finds its 
appropriate and satisfactory explanation, only in the 
doctrine of a vicarious atonement ; while the belief 
in the latter doctrine necessitates our belief in the 
former ; so that every clear and positive proof of the 
one is so much strength added to the direct and 
positive evidence of the other? Such is the position 
we take, and as a presumptive evidence of its cor- 
rectness we appeal to : 

i . The facl that they who have rejected or modified 
the doclri7ie of the atoiiement have uniformly rejected 
or modified the doctrine of the divinity of Christ. 

If there have been any exceptions to this they 
have been of rare occurrence. If it may be taken 
as an admitted historical fact, which none, it is pre- 
sumed, will dispute, that the rejection of Christ's 
vicarious death has always been accompanied by the 
denial of his deity, does it not seem to imply most 
strongly that there is, in the minds of men, an 
inconsistency in holding to the latter while rejecting 
the former? If it be not so — that, to thinking men, 
there is a felt relation between these two doctrines, 
so close and necessary, that they must stand or 
fall together — what is the explanation of the fact 
that they have always been received or rejected 
together? Is it a mere coincidence? Nay. 



38 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

The rejectors of the atonement seem to say, prac- 
tically, and do say in words, that there was no need 
of the incarnation of a divine being to do such a work 
as they ascribe to Jesus Christ — the mere moral 
enlightenment and spiritual elevation of men. In 
their view, it would be a waste of divine treasure, to 
employ an incarnate deity to perform a work for 
which a highly exalted human or angelic nature is 
sufficient, and to believe that God has done this 
makes an unnecessary demand upon human faith. 
With this conclusion, the believers in the atonement 
may most heartily agree, for we may without hesita- 
tion assert : 

2. That if the work of making a vicarious offer- 
ing for sin be excluded from the mission of Christ, 
scripture assigns no adequate reason why a divine 
being should become incarnate to undertake it. 

There are two radically different views of the 
nature and objecl of Christ's mission, one or the 
other of which, stated in general terms, is adopted 
by all who receive the revelation of the gospel. 
The first, setting aside theories of particular schools, 
and presented in familiar language in which all may 
agree, is, that Jesus Christ came into the world to 
render salvation possible to men, by an offering of 
himself as a sacrifice for sin, so that God might be 
just and the justifier of him that believeth. They do 
not understand scripture to teach that Christ came 
to make it more convenient for men to be saved, 
or to secure, by moral influence, the repentance and 
return to righteousness of a larger number than 
would otherwise have yielded to the divine influ-' 



SERMONS. 39 

ences already in the world ; but to provide an 
atonement which should make it consistent with 
God's righteous character or government to save 
any, " that whosoever believeth in him should not 
perish but have everlasting life." The opposite 
view, — denying that any obstacle to man's salva- 
tion ever existed in the character or government 
of God, and asserting that men might have been 
saved, if Christ had never come, on the same terms 
as they are now saved, — makes Christ's work to 
consist in the more clear revealing of God's attri- 
butes, especially his mercy, in the teaching of the 
truth, and the offering, in his life and death, more 
powerful persuasives to lead men to repentance and 
piety. 

If the former view be the correct one, then the 
necessity that a divine being should take upon 
himself the form of a servant, and humble himself 
to the death of the cross, can be made clearly to 
to appear. If the latter view be true, we can see 
no adequate reason for the humiliation of the divine 
Son of God ; we can discover, in such a work, noth- 
ing which an angel, or a human being, filled with the 
Spirit and sustained as God's grace could sustain 
him, might not have done. So say they who adopt 
this view ; and consistently they reject the doctrine 
of Christ's proper deity. 

But let us inquire more particularly, if there was 
anything in the work of Christ, essential to human 
salvation, which an angel, or a sanctified and inspired 
man, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, # might 
not have accomplished ? 



4-0 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

3. Was divinity an essential qualification in a 
teacher of the truth ? 

Did Jesus Christ make to man revelations which 
could not have been made through an inspired man? 
The question is not, — whether Jesus Christ, being 
himself the Head of all wisdom and knowledge, did 
" speak as never man spake," or as never man could 
speak? None of us could hesitate in answering that 
question affirmatively. Nor is the inquiry, at this 
point, whether it is through the coming and work of 
Christ, foreknown and predetermined in the eternal 
counsels, that all revelation, in former and later 
time, has been given to men. No believer in the 
evangelical view of Christ's mission doubts this. 
The first revelation of mercy to the sinning pair in 
Eden, was the promise of a coming redeemer ; and 
it was the "Spirit of Christ," in the ancient prophets, 
as well as in the apostles, that enabled them to 
"speak as they were moved." Most firmly do we 
hold, and most unqualifiedly do we teach, that but 
for the purpose, held in the eternal counsels of the 
Godhead, to provide for human salvation by the 
incarnation of the divine Son of God, the ears of a 
fallen race would never have been saluted by voices 
of heavenly love and mercy ; and respecting the 
grace and forgiveness of an offended Deity, earth 
would forever have remained as silent as hell. It is 
not the procuring cause — the ground of that mercy 
vouchsafed to man in the divine revelations — for 
which we are now inquiring ; but the necessary 
qualification of the messenger by whom the revela- 
tion is sent. It is in this view, that we hesitate not 



SERMONS. 41 

to say that, unless it be admitted that Jesus Christ 
does teach his own deity and proclaim himself the 
life of men because in his death there is a vicarious 
offering for sin, then there is nothing in his instruc- 
tions which might not have been communicated to 
men through a human teacher inspired by the Holy 
Ghost. His moral precepts, surely none will say, 
were of a nature to preclude the idea of their being 
taught by one commissioned from God and filled 
with wisdom by him. And the great truth, which it 
is claimed he came to teach, namely: that of God's 
love and mercy toward men, and his readiness to 
receive and forgive the returning penitent, — this the 
prophets of old taught as positively as did Christ. 
The Old Testament is full of such teaching. " Let 
the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man 
his thoughts : and let him return unto the Lord and 
he will have mercy upon him ; and to our God, for 
he will abundantly pardon." "As I live, saith the 
Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the 
wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and 
live." "Therefore also now, saith the Lord, turn ye 
even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and 
with weeping, and with mourning : and rend your 
heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the 
Lord your God : for he is gracious and merciful, 
slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth 
him of the evil." 

Was it necessary that deity should become incar- 
nate to teach this doctrine more plainly? Indeed 
all the truths, preceptive or doctrinal, which Christ 
taught, are found also in the writings of his apostles, 

N 



42 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

as plainly and as fully taught as in the gospels. It 
is true that most of them received their knowledge 
by a personal intercourse with the Saviour, but will 
any one so limit the power of God, as to say that he 
could not have communicated to them the same 
knowledge by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost? 
Indeed it was thus that Paul, who has given us 
more than they all, received his knowledge of divine 
things. He was not, like the others, a companion 
, and disciple of Christ while he dwelt on earth ; 
neither did he have instruction from those who were 
his immediate followers. He was directly inspired of 
God.* This he most positively affirms, — "I certify 
to you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached 
of me is not after man. For I neither received it of 
man, neither was I taught it but by the revelation of 
Jesus Christ." ''But when it pleased God who sep- 
arated me from my mother's womb, and called me 
by his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might 
preach him among the heathen : immediately I con- 
ferred not with flesh and blood ; neither went I up 
to Jerusalem, to them which were apostles before 
me. Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem 
to see Peter, and abode with him fifteen days. But 
other of the apostles saw I none, save Peter the 
Lord's brother:" and afterwards he says, that those 
whom he met "in conference added nothing to me." 
It was God's own spirit that inspired Paul to teach 
so fully and clearly, as in his epistles he has done, 
the doctrines and precepts of the gospel. 

It may then be said, without presumption, that to 
make the revelations of the gospel to men, did not 



SERMONS. 43 

require the attribute of divinity in the teacher ; and 
we cannot find in this part of the work of the divine 
Son of God any satisfactory explanation of the mys- 
terious fact of his incarnation. 

It may be said, however, that in the death of 
Christ, as a divine person, there was a more forcible 
representation to men of the mercy and earnest love 
of God for them, than could be gained by any other 
mode of teaching. Full assent is given to this 
statement. The spectacle of the dying Son of God 
on the cross of Calvary, is the most wonderful proof 
and exhibition of the love and mercy of God, of 
which the mind of man can conceive; but it is just 
because in it we behold an atonement for sin. 

Take away this element of vicariousness, and it 
becomes the death of a martyr for the truth only. 
The individual who looks upon the sight feels no 
personal relation to it, such as to constrain him to 
cry out, in the fulness of his heart, "The Saviour 
died for me." 

He may see in it an exhibition of God's love in 
allowing his Son to die in attestation of the truth; but 
he rather shrinks from it as an unnecessary suffering; 
for he who would not believe the testimony of Christ 
before, would hardly be more ready to believe on 
account of this added element of a present divinity 
in the death of the cross, as a simple attestation of 
that testimony. Indeed the whole history of Chris- 
tianity shows that the event of Calvary has been 
powerful to move the hearts of men to repentance, 
when viewed as a vicarious sacrifice only and not 
when viewed as a martyrdom. It is they who look 



44 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

upon it as vicarious, that make use of it as a common 
means of awakening in the minds of men, lively con- 
ceptions of God's mercy and love, and in general, I 
may say, those only. While, therefore, it is readily 
acknowledged that the divinity of Christ adds greatly 
to the solemnity and affecting character of the scene 
of the Saviour's death, it does not seem to be anything 
like an adequate explanation of the incarnation, to 
say, simply, that it was to give to men an exhibition 
of a divine martyrdom for the truth. Had a per- 
fectly holy man taught and died as Jesus did, the 
truth would have been sufficiently attested to con- 
vince any who were not determined to reject it. If 
Christ was divine, he must have come for some 
other end, besides that of making a revelation of the 
truth that God is merciful. 

4. Was divinity necessary to the performance of 
the miraculous works of Christ ? 

It is true that Jesus claimed these works as proof 
of his divine mission and divine character. It is 
true that he placed himself on an equality with the 
Father in the performance of them: "My Father 
worketh hitherto and I work." It is true that these 
miracles, being thus wrought by his own power, 
became proof positive of his divinity ; for it is 
inconceivable that the Deity would delegate mirac- 
ulous power — all power in heaven and earth — to a 
mere man to be employed and appealed to in proof 
of so blasphemous a falsehood as the claim of 
equality with God. The miracles of Christ were 
a proof of the divinity of Christ, because he claimed 
them as such, and his claim could not be false, 



SERMONS. 45 

unless God was a party to the deception. But that 
the proper deity of Christ was necessary to the per- 
formance of the miracles is not admitted, for aside 
from this peculiar claim to divine power, the works 
are no more proof of the presence of divinity in 
him, than were the miraculous plagues of Egypt 
proof of the divinity of Moses. The prophets who 
went before, and the apostles who came after Jesus, 
wrought many wonderful miracles. They raised the 
dead, cast out devils, healed the lame, cured dis- 
eases, and wrought many wonderful works in attes- 
tation of their authority as messengers from God. 
It was not to effect such wonders then that a divine 
person must needs take up his abode on earth, in 
the likeness of sinful flesh. 

5. Was divinity necessary hi order to the offering 
of a pure example ? 

We know that beside the Son of God, who was 
also the Son of Man, no one born of woman has 
ever lived on this earth a life of perfect purity; and 
this has been because all have partaken of the orig- 
inal taint of depravity. 

Christ, though made in the likeness of man, yet 
had none of that original perverseness of man's 
nature. He was born immaculate. 

But are we to conclude that it was because 
divinity was united to his humanity, that he was 
kept immaculate, and that this was the sole condi- 
tion upon which human nature could be kept from 
sin in a world of sin ? In other words, are we 
justified in assuming that a human being created 
without the taint of depravity, and placed among 



46 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

men as Jesus was, with the aid of the Holy Ghost 
given without measure, must necessarily fall into 
sin ? Must we suppose it to be beyond the power 
of God's Spirit so to sanctify and sustain a being 
created pure, that he should never fall, even in the 
midst of temptations, such as those to which Christ 
was exposed ? Surely we may not thus limit the 
Holy One. That power which can take the man, 
defiled with sin, and purify him, and bring him back 
to holiness, and perfect, him in grace, and make him 
meet for the company of pure spirits in heaven, is 
surely equal to the work of preserving in purity an 
angel or a finite being created holy, though clothed 
in human flesh and placed among men. 

We cannot admit therefore, that divinity was nec- 
esssary in order to the presenting of a holy example 
to men in this world of sin ; nor can we admit that 
in the example of a holy life, which Christ has given, 
we see an exhibition of his divine nature. Such a 
view would go far toward destroying the efficacy of 
that example, as a means of leading Christians to 
higher attainments in piety. It was not offered to 
us to prove or illustrate the fact that deity cannot 
sin ; but to show how a being, created like ourselves, 
and tempted in all points as we are, could yet resist 
temptation and live holily, in order that we might 
have an example for imitation, and be encouraged 
to strive after a like purity. Now, if it was the 
deity in Christ that secured his performance in a 
sinless state, and if this was the only condition 
under which such a result could be attained as a 
holy life on earth, then instead of seeing in the life 



SERMONS. 47 

of Christ an example for our imitation, we see a 
holiness placed as far beyond our reach as that of 
God himself, and its effect, as an influence upon us 
weakened, if not destroyed. We see not a holy 
man, subjected to temptations, and yet by the aid of 
the Spirit overcoming them; but a God, incapable of 
sinning, and therefore holy. Is it in this light, that 
Christ is set before us, in those passages where his 
example is presented for our imitation? I think not, 
"To him that overcometh," saith he, "will I grant to 
sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, 
and am set down with my Father in his throne." 

Paul, exhorting his brethren to lay aside every 
sin and run with patience their race, directs them 
for an example and encouragement to look unto 
Jesus ; " who for the joy that was set before him 
endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set 
down at the right hand of the throne of God. For 
consider," says he, " him that endured such contra- 
diction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied 
and faint in your minds." 

"Christ," says Peter, "also suffered for us, leaving 
us an example, that ye should follow his steps : who 
when he was reviled, reviled not again ; when he 
suffered he threatened not ; but committed himself 
to him that judgeth righteously." Now, if in these 
and like examples of Christ, we are not to look upon 
him as a man tempted in all points like as we are, 
but as one who has overcome, who has endured, 
who has maintained a pure and holy life, only 
because he was divine, is not their force in a great 
degree weakened ? So indeed it appears. 



48 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

Not only am I persuaded, from considerations 
drawn from scripture and from the suggestions of 
reason, that we are not under the necessity of seek- 
ing an explanation of Christ's perfect life, in his 
divinity, but I am made to feel that by so doing we 
should greatly lessen the power of that life over the 
hearts and lives of his followers. It is Jesus Christ 
the man, whose example is given us to imitate, not 
Christ the God. He was made flesh that he might 
partake of our nature and be " tempted in all points 
like as we are, yet without sin," and thus show us 
how to overcome the world ; not by virtue of the 
fact that he was divine, which we are not, but in 
view of the fact, that he was man as we are, and 
that God's Spirit aided him as the same Spirit is 
promised to aid all the infirmities of other men, who 
in sincerity seek this assistance. 

Thus far then, in the work of Christ, we find 
nothing which seems to demand the incarnation of 
a divine being as a necessity for its accomplishment. 
To secure the ends we have enumerated is essen- 
tially the work which they ascribe to him who deny 
the vicarious atonement. To such, he is a Saviour, 
in being a teacher and an example. How can these 
offer a satisfactory explanation of the fact, that 
a divine being came to do a work, which a cre- 
ated being with the aid of the Holy Spirit might 
have done ? Such an explanation they do not 
attempt, but seek, rather, to avoid the dilemma, 
by denying the fact of a divine incarnation. But 
to us who believe that the proper deity of Jesus 
Christ is as plainly taught in scripture as is 



SERMONS. 49 

the personal existence of Jehovah himself, there 
is no alternative than to reject that view of his 
mission which limits it to a work, which a created 
being might have been commissioned to perform, 
and to look farther for an explanation of the won- 
drous mystery of "God manifest in the flesh." We 
find that explanation, — nay more, the necessity of 
that mysterious fact, — in this other doctrine, which 
is also clearly revealed, namely — that Jesus Christ 
came not alone to teach the truth, and to present a 
holy example, but also to procure for the fallen and 
lost race of man, the remission of their sins, and the 
gift of eternal life, by the sacrifice of himself. 

6. This work of making an atonement for sin a 
divine being only could accomplish. 

We do not desire to take the position, so lately 
taken by many, — that the provision made for man's 
salvation, by the death of Christ is the only one 
which divine wisdom could make to accomplish this 
end, neither would we deny the correctness of this 
position. 

God has not made known this matter to us. He 
has taught us, that in the sacrifice of Calvary he has 
placed man's only hope of salvation, and we are 
warranted in saying, that no less costly a provision 
could have met the demands of his holy character 
and government. He has also taught us, that his 
own divine Son has come into the world, that who- 
soever believeth in him "should not perish but have 
everlasting life;" and by that vicarious offering of 
himself on the cross Jesus has declared, that mercy 
is alone to be obtained: "As Moses lifted up the 



50 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of 
Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth should 
not perish, but have eternal life." This work, we 
say, a created being could not have performed. 
Such a one, furnished by divine grace, and aided 
by the divine Spirit, might have been the bearer to 
us of a full revelation of God's mercy ; he might 
have presented to us a holy example for imitation ; 
he might have wrought miracles in proof of his 
mission from God ; he might have died the death of 
a martyr in the cause of man's salvation ; but he 
could not, in the very nature of the case, have 
offered an atonement ; he could not have become 
a propitiation for the sins of the world ; he could not 
have borne the sins of men in his body on the tree, 
and thus have opened a way whereby God might be 
just and the justifier of them that believed in the 
sacrifice. As a created being in teaching, laboring, 
dying, he would only be pursuing the path of duty ; 
he would only be fulfilling the obligations, which, by 
virtue of his relations to God as his Creator and 
Preserver, would rest upon him. With such a nature 
he would hold, essentially, the relations to God and 
man, which the holy prophets and apostles have 
held, and could, no more than they, procure salva- 
tion by the gift of himself as a sacrifice. Had the 
prophet Elijah, from his birth to his death, lived a 
perfectly holy life, he could not have become a vica- 
rious sacrifice for the rest of the race, and thus have 
purchased their redemption from the demands of 
justice. Neither could any other creature have done 
it. On every creature the law of God has claims, to 



SERMONS. 51 

the full extent of his ability to render obedience, and 
in no possible way can he do more than simple duty. 

He who would become a vicarious sacrifice for 
sinners — who would deliver the transgressors of 
the law from its penalties — must be one, in his very 
nature, above law, one on whom law has no claims 
for service. Such a one, voluntarily assuming the 
form of a servant, and placing himself under the 
law, and accomplishing the obedience due to it, and 
yet suffering as a transgressor in the stead of sin- 
ners, may make the law honorable ; while, for his 
sake, its penalties are withheld from those who right- 
eously deserve them. Such was the person and 
such the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, who though 
divine and equal with the Father, yet humbled him- 
self and became obedient even to the death of the 
cross. For us, "he was numbered with the trans- 
gressors." "He who knew no sin, became sin for 
us, that we might become the righteousness of God 
in him." "He hath redeemed us from the curse of 
the law, being made a curse for us." "He bore 
our sins in his own body on the tree." " He was 
wounded for our transgressions, and by his stripes 
are we healed." In him, and in him alone, we find 
salvation; for "this is the true God and eternal life." 
Eternal life is in him, because he is the true God. 
The collocation of these two ideas of Christ's divin- 
ity and the great blessing which he has procured for 
man in one sentence has a deep significance, which 
we trust has been in some degree illustrated by this 
discussion. 

If the position which has been taken be the true 



52 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

one — that the fa 61 of the divine incarnation finds its 
only satisfactory, and with our present light, its only 
possible explanation in the doctrine of a vicarious 
atonement offered by the Son of God — then 

7. All the proofs, furnished in scripture, of Jesus 
Christ's proper deity, are so many proofs of the vica- 
rious value of his obedience, .sufferings and death. 

If the one is sustained by the inspired testimony, 
the other must, of necessity, follow. In addition to 
all the direct teaching of scripture, in favor of this 
grand article of Christian faith — that of a vicarious 
atonement — we have the fullest, most positive, and 
clearest teaching concerning Christ's divinity to 
strengthen and confirm our belief; and we recognize 
in this doctrine of Christ's proper deity the very 
corner-stone of the whole evangelical system. We 
know that if he be divine, to whom are variously 
applied the titles of God, the Lord, the mighty God, 
the everlasting Father, the I am, Jehovah ; to whom 
are unqualifiedly attributed the works of God; to 
whom the divine attributes of omnipotence, omnis- 
cience, omnipresence, eternity, righteousness, and 
mercy, are ascribed; to whom are paid the honors of 
divine worship by holy men on earth and angels 
and sainted spirits in heaven; who is declared to be 
equal with the Father, by his own lips and by the 
words of his apostles, and who is called the "true 
God and eternal life ; " if this Being is divine, then is 
he a Saviour also — not by a figure of speech, but 
in very deed and truth, a Saviour, who by obedience 
even unto death, has purchased eternal salvation for 
all that believe on him. 



SERMONS. 53 

We have not, in this discussion, ventured to 
inquire respecting the nature of that vicarious suf- 
fering which Christ endured, and which a divine 
human being alone could endure ; nor do we propose 
to do so at length; but it may be here a fitting 
question: 

8. Was divinity necessary, in order to the exercise 
of that wondrous sympathy with sinners, attributed to 
Christ in scripture ; and that, on entering into their 
condition, so as perfectly to compreheud and feel all 
their woes, and take their evil upon his heart, he 
might bear with it and for them ; and in this do we 
see all there is of vicarious value in Jesus suffering? 

That in this sympathetic endurance of the woes of 
a sinful race, consists the whole of Christ's vicarious 
sacrifice for sin, is the boldly pronounced and labored 
theory of Dr. Bushnell — whose eloquent writings 
have much agitated the Christian world, and whose 
latest utterances emphasize, in a remarkable manner, 
this moral view of the atonement. 

In the writings of Jonathan Edwards, he has fallen 
upon a passage which he pronounces "the finest 
paragraph in all his works — setting forth Christ in 
the sentiment of his vicarious relation to men as 
their Redeemer and Saviour." That paragraph of 
Edwards is as follows: "Christ's great love and 
pity to the elect was one source of his suffering. A 
strong exercise of pity excites a lively idea of the 
misery under which he pities them * * * his love 
and pity fixed the idea of them in his mind as if he 
had really been they, and fixed their calamity in his 
mind as though it had been really his. A very 



54 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

strong and lively pity toward the miserable tends to 
make their case ours ; as in other respecls, so in 
this, in particular, as it doth in our idea place us in 
their stead under their misery, with a most lively 
sense of that misery, as it were feeling it for them, 
actually suffering it in their stead by strong sympa- 
thy." "And yet," says Dr. Bushnell, "he (Edwards) 
could not see the atonement here ; that was trans- 
acted on the nails and the wood ! 1 As if the mere 
suffering of his human body were anything in com- 
parison with the great moral woe of his heart, or as 
if it were intended to be anything but an outward 
sign of that. We see from his words that he had 
the key in his hand, but he did not dare to use it. 
Had he thus been able to see the matter of the 
sacrifice, in the moral analogies so powerfully 
sketched by himself, instead of lapsing under the 
jargon of penalties endured, and legal compensa- 
tions paid to justice, what strength and clearness 
would he have added to all our Christian ideas — 
giving us a gospel simple as our own human feeling, 
and faithfully interpreted and verified by it ! " 

The courage in which Jonathan Edwards was 
deficient, it was reserved for Horace Bushnell to 
exhibit. Having "this key in his hand" which the 
theological giant of New England dared not use, he 
proposes, with it, to unlock even the secrets of God's 
infinite nature and of the Saviour's infinite love, in 
the offering of an atonement for sinners. "I pro- 
pose," he says, "to interpret all that is prepared and 

1 Perhaps Peter was under a like obscurity of vision when he said, 
"he bore our sins in his own body on the tree." 



SERMONS. 55 

suffered in the propitiation of God and the justifica- 
tion of men, by a reference to the moral pronounce- 
ments of human nature and society ; assuming that 
nothing can be true of God, or of Christ, which is 
not true in some sense, more humane, and is not 
made intelligible by human analogies. We cannot 
interpret God, as any one may see, except by what 
we find in our own personal instincts and ideas." 
The meaning of this, as appears in the more full 
development of his scheme, is, that by the experi- 
ences of human sympathy and the possibilities of 
human feeling, we are infallibly taught what was, 
and what alone could be, the nature of that soul woe 
which the Son of God endured to bring salvation to 
a sinful race. And this soul woe was endured not 
"to redeem" men, but to win them; for we are not 
allowed even to regard this sympathetic woe of the 
Redeemer as, in any sense, a satisfaction rendered 
to divine justice, nor even a substitution, as a gov- 
ernmental expedient, admitted in the stead of the 
deserved woe of sinners. 

They who hold to such views of the vicarious 
work of Christ, he declares, "contrive a justice in 
God, which accepts the pains of innocence in place 
of the pains of wrong, and which is, in fact, the very 
essence of injustice." 

As Dr. Bushnell himself teaches that Jesus, the 
innocent one, suffered this intense woe, in order 
that guilty men might escape, through his min- 
istration of sympathy, a deserved woe, we see 
not why this charge of injustice does not equally 
recoil upon his own scheme. In the one case, 



56 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

as in the other, Jesus is equally innocent, and suffers 
equal pains. But of this we wish not now to speak. 

That the sympathetic sorrow which Jesus endured 
is as distinctly and positively recognized in the vica- 
rious work of Christ by those who teach that there 
was in that work a satisfaction of divine justice, as 
by him who teaches it to be the manifestation only 
of a love that would win men, is seen by the passage 
already quoted from Edwards. We may add another, 
from the author of "God with us," and "Outlines of 
Christian Theology": "Beings who have a like spir- 
itual nature can realize and bear the spiritual suffer- 
ings of one another." And "bearing another's woe 
is sympathy or compassion, when either of these 
words is used in its deepest sense." It is suffering 
with another; enduring what his spirit endures; 
sharing not in his bodily ill, but the feeling which 
that ill excites; not his sin and guilt, but the spir- 
itual state of remorse and fear consequent upon 
them. Owing to the imperfection of their knowl- 
edge and love, the sympathy of men with one 
another is only partial, and not at all commensurate 
with that of Christ. 

Christ's human nature was virtually perfect, in 
knowledge and love. It had not, to be sure, all 
knowledge, but it had, at every moment, all the 
knowledge requisite to the complete performance of 
its work for that moment. And for practical ends 
this was as good as omniscience. His love was 
equal to his knowledge; so that all the conditions 
for absolute sympathy met in his person. When 
therefore we read of his agony of soul in the garden 



SERMONS. 57 

and on the cross, culminating in the feeling expressed 
by the cry ' My God, my God, why hast thou for- 
saken me?' it is not difficult to believe that he expe- 
rienced the bitternesss of remorse, and the horror of 
being deserted by God. Without professing to have 
set forth the way and the only way in which Christ 
actually bore the penalty due to men for their sin ; 
without asserting that Christ bore just the amount of 
suffering which awaited sinners unredeemed in eter- 
nity ; and without overlooking the dignity of his 
person, which gave inestimable value to his death, 
we think a way has been indicated by which he could 
have borne the penal woe ; and if so, however dif- 
ferent in some of its elements might have been the 
actual suffering of soul endured by him, from that 
which we have suggested, the objection to our doc- 
trine has been sufficiently met." 

Believers in the common views of the atonement 
do not fail to dwell, with adoring gratitude, upon the 
sorrow of the soul which Jesus endured by his sym- 
pathy with the guilty ones he came to save. Most 
gladly do we accept from Dr. Bushnell all those 
ardent and glowing illustrations and delineations 
which intensify and exalt our views of the precious- 
ness of that sympathy ; but we are only shocked at 
that presumption, which claims for human under- 
standing the right to declare positively, — "Here is 
the whole of Christ's vicarious sacrifice." 

We do not admit the justness of the charge made 
against Edwards, that " he could not see the atone- 
ment here, that was transacted on the nails and the 
wood." 



58 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

We do not hesitate to emphasize "the great moral 
woe of his heart," as far exceeding the pains which 
Jesus endured in body : and we believe it was a woe 
which no mere human being could experience ; for 
omniscience only could be equal to a perfect under- 
standing of all the woe of sin. We quote as a 
scriptural proof of the Saviour's omniscience, the 
expression of the apostles' prayer, " Thou Lord who 
knowest the hearts of all men, show whether of 
these two thou hast chosen." We cannot conceive 
how Christ could make his "soul an offering for the 
sin" of the world, without an omniscient sympathy, 
which could enter into the sorrows of all hearts, and 
perfectly appreciate all the infinite phases of human 
woe and human guilt. 

But to us it appears the height of presumptuous 
boldness and irreverence, to judge deity by human 
analogies, and to pronounce this sympathetic sorrow 
to be the whole of the soul woe, which Jesus endured 
in the agonies of Gethsemane and Calvary. Can we 
read thus easily the inmost heart of the Son of 
God ? May we bring God's ways before the stand- 
ard of human reason, and determine and pronounce 
upon their possibility, by our fallible understanding? 
May the incomprehensible God, in this the most 
amazing of all his manifestations to men, be per- 
fectly known ? Nay, if it is permitted us to see, in 
some of its features, the suffering soul of God's Son, 
in the great offering for our redemption, most surely 
it becomes us to bow humbly before the incarnate 
mystery, and with reverent awe say, " Lo, these are 
but a part of his ways." 



SERMONS. 59 

If it be asked of us, what beside this sympathetic 
grief was the suffering of Christ, or still again what 
was the exact relation which the divine bore to the 
human in the endurance of the vicarious agony, we 
can only reply by a simple confession of ignorance : 
nor, in the acquaintance of more than a quarter cen- 
tury with the writings of others, have we been able 
to see evidence of knowledge in them. These are 
plainly questions beyond the reach of the human 
intellect. No investigation will ever solve them. 

We would not declare all discussions of these 
subjects presumptuous, nor pass judgment upon the 
learned writings of those who have sought to pene- 
trate these secrets, as wholly unprofitable ; but, in 
our view, the chief benefit, derived from these dis- 
cussions, has been the bringing into clearer light the 
incomprehensible mystery of the Cross. 

Fitting, in this connection, are the words found 
among the earlier utterances of Dr. Bushnell, though 
perhaps he may have outgrown them: "The mys- 
tery of the divine human must remain a mystery. 
I cannot fathom it. Reason will justify me in no 
such attempt. And when we come to the sufferings 
and death, I would withhold myself in like manner, 
and require of myself to look only at what the suf- 
ferings and death express. It is commonly held 
that suffering in God is impossible, though we never 
hesitate to affirm that he is displeased thus and thus, 
and this displeased state is so far of course an 
unpleased or painful state. But even if it were oth- 
erwise, if God in his own nature were as unsuscep- 
tible as a rock, that fact would justify no inference 



60 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

concerning the person of Christ. The only question 
is whether God, by a mysterious union with the 
human, can so far employ the element of suffering 
as to make it a vehicle for the expression of his own 
grace and tenderness ; whether indeed God can be 
allowed, in any way, to exhibit those passive virtues 
which are the most active and sublimest of all vir- 
tues, because they are the most irresistible, and 
require the truest greatness of spirit. 

"Therefore, when we come to the agony of the 
garden and the passion of the cross, we are not, 
with the speculative unitarian, to set up as a dogma 
beforehand, as something that we perfectly know, 
that God cannot set himself in any possible relation 
with suffering ; nor, believing with the common 
trinitarian that there are two distinct natures in 
Christ, are we to conclude that no sort of pang can 
touch the divine nature, and that only his human 
part can suffer. We cannot thus enter into the 
interior of God's mysteries. We are only to see the 
eternal life approach to our race ; divine love mani- 
fested and sealed ; the law sanctified by obedience 
unto death ; pardon certified by ' Father forgive ; ' 
peace established and testified by the resurrection 
of the dead." 

In this discussion, we have purposely avoided 
this presumption so fittingly deprecated. We have 
viewed the subject in the light of revealed fact and 
revealed doctrine ; not in the light of philosophical 
speculation. Without undervaluing the latter, we 
prefer to keep ever close to scriptural represen- 
tation. 



SERMONS. 6l 

If, in objection to aught we have said or implied, 
the question be asked, Did Deity suffer on the 
cross ? we should meet it by a similar question, — 
Was Deity humiliated in the incarnation ? and then 
make reply to both these equally difficult questions, 
in the words of divine inspiration, " Who being in 
the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal 
with God : But made himself of no reputation, and 
took upon him the form of a servant and was made 
in the likeness of men : And being found in fashion 
as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient 
unto death, even the death of the cross ; " taking 
refuge from all philosophic difficulties, behind the 
words of one who though he had been up to the 
third heavens and heard things unutterable, yet did 
not fully understand this matter. " Without contro- 
versy, great is the mystery of godliness : God was 
manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of 
angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in 
the world, received up into glory." 



SERMON III 



THE GOSPEL PROVED DIVINE BY ITS 
PERVERSIONS. 

WHICH THINGS ALSO WE SPEAK, NOT IN THE WORDS 
WHICH MAN'S WISDOM TEACHETH, BUT WHICH THE 
HOLY GHOST TEACHETH. 1 COR. II. 1 3. 

A young infidel was scoffing at Christianity, in the 
presence of Dr. John M. Mason, because of the 
misconduct of its professors. Said the Doctor to 
him, — "Did you ever know an uproar to be made 
because an infidel went astray from the paths of 
of morality ? " Upon his admission that he never 
did, Dr. M. replied, — "Then do you not see that by 
expecting the professors of Christianity to be holy, 
you admit it to be a holy religion, and thus pay it 
the highest compliment in your power?" 

By this retort the mouth of the opposer was shut. 
Sceptics and opposers of the gospel of Christ have 
ever been disposed to judge of its claims by the 
lives of its professors ; and as, without difficulty, 
they have discovered a vast deal of hypocrisy and 
immorality- among those who have professed to 
belong to the number of Christ's disciples, they 



SERMONS. 63 

have readily laid the charge to the gospel itself, 
and have appeared glad of such an excuse for 
rejecting it. In this judgment, however, they have 
manifested either positive dishonesty or criminal 
recklessness. They have either known the conduct 
of these false professors, on whose account they 
reproach the gospel, to be contrary to the principles 
and precepts of the gospel, and therefore not to be 
laid to its charge, or they have not taken pains to 
examine the system of Christianity which they 
reproach, to learn what it does teach and what are 
its requirements. 

The former is reckless dishonesty ; the latter dis- 
honest recklessness. Undoubtedly, to the majority 
of those who have fought Christianity, on a large 
or a small scale, both dishonesty and recklessness 
might be attributed justly. 

Hume confessed that he had never read the New 
Testament with attention ; and the ignorance of the 
sacred writings exhibited by Voltaire, and Paine, and 
other infidels is well known. 

The dishonesty of judging Christianity by its per- 
versions, in the false systems and false lives of its 
pretended friends, is most apparent. If we had no 
written word of ultimate authority, embodying the 
principles of the system in infallible statement, and 
were under necessity of trusting to tradition for our 
knowledge, and of looking to those who call and 
have called themselves Christians, for our only 
acquaintance with Christianity, then it might be 
acknowledged a fair procedure, to judge it solely 
by what appears in the lives and systems of those 



64 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

professing it. But Christianity does not so come to 
us. It comes offering certain sacred writings claim- 
ing to be inspired of God, and to contain his will 
and his truth made known to man. Doctrines are 
taught and precepts delivered which are to be 
received by men and wrought into their lives ere 
they can be acknowledged Christians. Such is 
the explicit teaching of the divine oracles. Those 
who do thus receive the truth and the influences of 
the gospel become, it is taught, new men, and are 
henceforth actuated by motives and governed by 
principles holy and right. Supreme love to God 
and equal love to man form the basis of the law of 
Christianity. 

Now shall the sincere inquirer reject the claim 
of the gospel to be divine, because the lives and 
systems of its professed friends, in a great multitude 
of cases, are inconsistent with the teachings of the 
sacred book ? Shall the gospel be rejected because 
of its perversions by wicked men ? By no means. 
On the contrary, these very perversions, to the candid, 
sincere iiiquirer, will be additional proof of the div- 
inity of the original. They show that the gospel is 
not of man, for man is the author of these perver- 
sions, and if he, with all the light of the sacred word 
shining on him and aiding him, forms such evil 
systems and allows such evil conduct, how can he be 
the author of so pure and holy a system as the 
Christianity of the New Testament, of which Jesus 
Christ is the great Teacher and model Character? 
Let it be remembered that this gospel of Jesus 
Christ most positively claims to be of divine origin ; 



SERMONS. 65 

and then the more minute and detailed the exami- 
nation of the various errors in doctrine and practice, 
which have assumed the Christian name may be, the 
stronger will grow the conviction, by the comparison 
of the false and the true, that, while these are the 
work of man, the words of Christ, of the apostles 
and prophets, are "not the words which man's wis- 
dom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth." 

To this study and comparison, then, we would not 
hesitate to invite the sceptic ; and if he will deal 
fairly, he will find those very things which he has 
been accustomed to regard as a reproach of the 
gospel, and an evidence of its falsity, while they do 
not belong to the gospel, to be yet a proof that the 
gospel is divine. 

The perversions of it by man and the almost 
universal tendency of man to pervert it, will prove, 
to a candid mind, that it did not originate with man. 

Consider the perversions of the Roman Church. 

To examine them all would require a volume : but 
some of the main features may be noticed briefly. 

We see then here a church professedly Christian, 
which, for centuries, held sway over a great portion 
of the civilized world. Its doctrines and spirit have 
been fully exhibited and can be studied in the history 
of peoples and nations. It has claimed to have the 
keys of heaven and hell, and to hold, within its 
communion, all that are to be saved. In its priest- 
hood, beginning with the lowest priest, and rising 
through ascending grades to bishops, archbishops, 
cardinals and Pope, resides the power to grant abso- 
lution to sinners on confession, or to withhold on 



66 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

grounds satisfactory to themselves, and to consign 
to perdition. The Head of this hierarchy — the 
Pope — is the vicegerent of God on earth, and is 
infallible. He claims power to remit sins, and as in 
multitudes of instances he has done, pretends to 
permit them ; and his indulgence has been and can 
be purchased with money. Through this conse- 
crated line of apostolic successors in the priesthood 
only, grace comes to man as a sinner. Those who 
yield assent to this system, and seek salvation within 
the fold of the church, are promised life ; but if any 
refuse, the church claims the right to coerce, and to 
deliver the rebellious into the hand of the tormentor 
or executioner. History teaches to what extent this 
right has been exercised. The sword of the faithful 
has reeked with the blood of heretics ; the scaffold, 
the names, the dungeon, and galleys, have received 
their thousands and tens of thousands of the incor- 
rigible. 

But how has this church instructed those that 
have acknowledged her authority ? She has taught 
them to look to her priesthood alone for instruc- 
tion ; she has shut the Bible, forbidden them to read 
it lest they be destroyed by heresy ; she has fed 
them with such doctrines as trans-substantiation, 
auricular confession, priestly absolution, penance 
for sin ; she has taught them to adore the Virgin 
Mary, to pray to saints, to reverence relics, to 
acquire merit by repeating paternosters, to observe 
fasts and holy days, and to cross themselves with 
holy water. She has taught that if they are faithful 
in these things, common vices, immoralities of 



SERMONS. 67 

life, venial sins, do not hinder their being good 
Christians. 

Such are some of the marked characteristics of 
the Roman Church. 

And though better teachings and lives have been 
known within its communion, yet such as described, 
it appears, as a system, in the history of centuries. 
The sceptic studies this history, and exclaims, — " Is 
this system of priestly power and ambition — this 
tyranny, intolerance and cruelty — this merchandise 
of sin — this mass of superstition and ignorance — 
Christianity? Then I reject at once such a gospel." 
Thus reasoned Voltaire, and thus have thousands 
in Roman Catholic countries, and elsewhere, been 
driven into infidelity. 

But we call upon the sceptic, inclined to follow 
these men in their reasonings, to stay. 

We put into his hand the New Testament and 
bid him study Christianity, as the Lord Jesus Christ 
has taught it, and compare it with this perversion of 
Rome. What a contrast does he find! In the place 
of priestly power and ambition, he sees a fraternity 
of humble men, bound by a common love to God 
and righteousness, all equal in the sight of heaven, 
and all priests unto God ; in the place of tyranny, 
intolerance and cruelty — mutual service, kind 
instruction and patient persuasion, gentleness and 
love ; instead of the traffic in sin — the most severe 
purity of heart and life demanded as service to 
God; instead of a superstitious worship of the Vir- 
gin, and the invocation of saints, and adoration of 
relics — the enlightened worship of the living and 



68 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

true God, and the seeking of salvation from the 
power and consequences of sin, through Jesus Christ 
the only Saviour. Here is true freedom, true moral- 
ity, true worship. Who, with sincere candor, can 
look upon this contrast, without being constrained to 
say, — That system of worldly power, pomp and pol- 
icy, shows man's authorship, — This system of heav- 
enly truth and wisdom is of God ? The human 
perversions only the more forcibly compel us to 
accept the divine origin of the true. If, after centu- 
ries of elaboration, in which work the wisest men in 
the Roman communion have wrought, this church 
has degenerated from a perfect system of truth and 
worship to such a system as popery presents, how 
can we avoid the conviction that some wisdom, 
greater than man's, must have conceived and estab- 
lished, in that age of the greatest corruption of 
doctrine and manners, that perfect system itself, 
the pure and holy gospel of Christ ? To a similar 
conclusion shall we be led, if we contrast with the 
pure gospel the perversions of the Greek church 
and other eastern churches. These show what are 
the gospels which man would frame. But let us 
leave these systems of superstition and look upon 
the opposite errors. 

The perversions of Christianity by German philos- 
ophers and their imitators in other lands. 

These are men of highly cultivated minds, who 
claim to be farthest removed from superstition. 
They have undertaken to remodel Christianity, and 
to free it from the errors and crudities discovered in 
it by their wisdom. And what have they given us ? 



SERMONS. 69 

Systems which, for their greater simplicity and sub- 
limer truth and purer morals, command our ready 
assent, as improvements on the gospel ? Far from 
it. On the contrary, the more they have diverged 
from the simple gospel, the less worthy of respect 
have their doctrines become, till, for fancifulness and 
absurdity, they equal the dreams of a sleeper. We 
find them attempting to explain the miracles of 
Christ on natural principles, resolving his power into 
that of a mesmerist or a conjurer ; or, reducing the 
history of Christ himself to a mere myth — a kind of 
fictitious narrative — in which the church embodied 
their ideas, moral and spiritual. We find them 
teaching Christianity to be a development of human 
reason, progressing from age to age ; and they hesi- 
tate not to reject many of the teachings of Christ 
and his apostles, respecting the character and des- 
tiny of men and the method of redemption. They 
loosen the bonds of morality, make little or nothing 
of faith, and repentance, and prayer, and substitute 
some general philosophical ideal of the beautiful 
and the true for the holy ; and the cultivation of the 
intellect, for the piety of the heart. And these 
systems — a combination of philosophical specula- 
tion, literary criticism and fanciful theories, with 
some elements of religious truth — they denominate 
Christianity. 

The gospel of the New Testament is emphatically 
a religion for every class of men — the poor, the 
ignorant, and the savage, as well as the rich, the 
wise, and the enlightened. But this amended gos- 
pel of philosophers requires a life of philosophical 



JO NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

study to apprehend it. It comes not to masses of 
men with life-giving influence. There is nothing in 
it which has power over the spirit of man — which 
has a grasp on his conscience — and with authorita- 
tive words direcls him to duty. 

Is it not a proof of the divine origin of the gos- 
pel, that when learned men, with the teachings and 
experience of eighteen centuries before them, under- 
take to improve upon it as given in its simple form 
in the New Testament, they do so invariably fall into 
puerilities, or plunge into monstrosities, or float off 
in wild vagaries and transcendental theories ? And 
while these works of men appear among men for 
a little while, and vanish with their authors from 
remembrance, the gospel in its simplicity, comes 
down from age to age, and ever finds hearts to 
accept it, and men to live by, and give up all for it 
and for the hopes it creates. So the human per- 
ishes, and the divine endures. 

Another argument for the divine original of the 
gospel, we may draw from the various perversions of 
the unevangelical seels. 

I have reference to those systems of belief which 
repudiate, or by their modifications render null such 
fundamental doctrines of the gospel, as entire 
depravity, regeneration and sanctification by the 
Holy Spirit's power, redemption by the vicarious 
sufferings of Christ and future retributions of the 
righteous and the wicked. Multitudes there are in 
Christan lands who adopt such perversions of the 
gospel for the truth, and claim that it is the Chris- 
tianity of Christ which they hold; Many do this 



SERMONS. 71 

honestly, having, no doubt, set out with a wrong 
bias of mind, to investigate truth ; many have will- 
ingly given up their judgment to be moulded by 
prejudice and desire ; and many have perversely 
sought not to know the truth, but to bend scripture 
to their preconceived and chosen opinions. But 
whatever the influences that have led men, they 
have variously departed from the truth as it is in 
Jesus, and adopted a mutilated gospel, in the place 
of the true. These systems we view but as par- 
ticular illustrations of the almost universal desire 
and disposition of man to seek for some modifica- 
tion of the gospel. It is a fact that men do not 
naturally find satisfaction in the doctrines of Chris- 
tianity. Their pride of intellect and station, their 
pride of heart, their love of sinful objects, and their 
disrelish for true godliness, all are opposed to these 
divine truths, and so the unsanctified heart finds 
some method of avoiding them. 

This tendency of men to obscure doctrines so 
pure and strict shows that, left to himself and his 
natural likings, man would never have framed such 
a system as Christ has taught, and the various per- 
versions, which so abound, wherever the gospel 
comes, show this most forcibly, and compel us to 
the belief that the gospel is not of man. Man, 
unguided by divine wisdom, would have framed it 
so that it would have less offended human pride, 
laid less severe restraints on human desire, and 
humbled human reason less. The severe purity, 
the sublime mystery, and the elevating character of 
its doctrines, so humiliating the natural man, and 



72 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

so exalting God, as compared with the unevangel- 
ical system prevalent, make it clear, that the latter 
are "the words which man's wisdom teacheth," but 
the former, " the words which the Holy Ghost 
teacheth." 

It is not however in these perverted systems, or 
in them that hold them alone, that we discover evi- 
dence of that opposition of the natural heart to true 
Christianity which proves man not to be its author. 

We see the same among evangelical seels. 

The doctrines accepted by these sects may, in 
general, be the true teaching of Christ and his 
apostles, and the systems of morality taught by them 
may accord with the inspired precepts ; but there is 
still room left for the natural mind to show whither 
its tendencies are directed. 

Very few are there, if any, whose conceptions of 
truth come up to the standard of the New Testa- 
ment teaching, and those who approximate more 
nearly to it, are persons who, themselves, most 
emphatically declare that they have experienced 
enlightening from the divine Spirit. They do not 
claim by unaided reason to have attained such 
understanding of divine truth. 

Among professed Christians even, there is a con- 
stant tendency to lower views of truth and duty 
than the gospel plainly teaches. Take the concep- 
tion of the Christian life and character, entertained 
by the great mass of the members of our churches 
and compare it with that which may, and ought to 
be gained by the study of the precepts and exam- 
ples of the New Testament, and how great is the 



SERMONS. J3 

contrast ! The form is taken for the substance, 
and external duties satisfy, when the devotion of 
the whole heart and life is required. Multitudes are 
the professed followers of Christ, who, if brought to 
the tests which Christ has given, and called to walk 
strictly to the letter and spirit of his precepts, would 
start back, as if this was altogether too much to be 
demanded. When they hear the faithful teacher set 
forth the duties, apply the tests and delineate the 
features of true Christianity, they are wont to say 
within themselves, "This is a hard saying." Even if 
they admit the correctness of the representation, 
they look upon it as very severe, call it close preach- 
ing, with an air and a tone which plainly mark it as 
in their estimation unusual, beyond what ordinary 
Christians are expected to reach after, much less 
attain. They set their standard much lower. 

To illustrate, more fully, let us look at some of 
the particulars in which the ordinary conception of 
the Christian life falls below the true standard. The 
gospel requires us to love God with all the heart, 
and have reference to his will and honor in every 
act. How few Christians adopt this, in all its 
breadth, so as to inquire in every transaction of 
business, in every gratification of desire, in every 
movement of life, what is God's will concerning it ! 
Many never seem to think themselves called upon to 
ask for the will of God respecting what they shall eat 
and drink, what apparel they shall wear, what houses 
they shall build, what furniture and equipage they 
shall provide* what journeys they shall take, or in 
what places they shall reside. Many even smile when 

R 



74 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

the duty of so doing is suggested. And yet what is 
clearer or more positive than the gospel command, — 
" Whether ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do 
all to the glory of God ? " 

Again, the Christian principle respecting prop- 
erty makes the man a steward, to whom God has 
entrusted talents to be occupied for him. He is to 
employ those talents, use the possessions, and con- 
duct, the business, whatever it is, as an agent for 
God. In every trade he makes, in every investment, 
in every labor, in every expenditure, he is to consult 
the will of the great Proprietor, and he is to use all 
his capital for such purposes and to promote such 
ends as God desires. Where are the men of busi- 
ness, professedly Christian, that have such concep- 
tions of their calling ? Are they not altogether too 
few, — here and there one? The gospel commands, 
" thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." This 
forbids the exalting of self interest above the inter- 
est of our fellow men, and calls on us, in all our 
transactions of business, to have our neighbor's wel- 
fare equally in view with our own, and, in all our 
dealings, treat him as though he were another self. 
Very often do we hear apologies for selfishness, and 
arguments to establish the inordinate claims of self- 
love ; but how often do we behold even professing 
Christians appreciating, in its full extent, the high, 
disinterested love enjoined in the second command ? 

Thus it is a most palpable truth that the great 
mass of Christians even do, in their conceptions of 
the Christian life and character, fall far below the 
standard plainly set up in the gospel. And those 



SERMONS. 



/:> 



who far excel the mass, and excel in their apprehen- 
sion of holy obligation, do never yet reach such a 
perfeclness of conception, that they do not, as they 
study more and more the teachings of Christ and 
his apostles, find, springing up in their minds, new 
views and loftier thoughts of true godliness. There 
are no Christians, even the wisest and holiest, even 
those whom unwilling sceptics are compelled to con- 
fess to be godly men, that sit down contented in the 
belief that they have sounded the deepest depths or 
reached to the loftiest heights of the truth contained 
in the sacred volume. On the contrary, so long as 
they live, they ever find it a well of living water, 
from which they can draw fresh supplies of holy 
thought and knowledge. 

How shall we account for this transcendent supe- 
riority of the teaching of the Scriptures over the 
conceptions of even its friends and students, but by 
ascribing its authorship to God himself? We all 
know that the wisest and best of the church, 
throughout all its history, have made it their study 
to attain the highest and noblest conceptions of 
man's duty, and the principles that should govern 
his life ; and we know that none, in all they have 
written or said, have excelled, or even equalled, the 
standard set up in the New Testament, while the 
masses have ever fallen below it : and is it possible 
for us to believe that man, unaided, in an age and 
among a people ignorant, barren of great truth and 
clear thought, could have conceived and established 
so perfect a system as the gospel ? It cannot be. 
The fact that man, though making the gospel a 



j6 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

study, has so constantly fallen short, both in concep- 
tion and practice, proves that the original must have 
had an author more than man. Thus man's perver- 
sion — man's failure — proves God's truth. 

This is most powerfully forced upon us, as a cor- 
rect conclusion, when we compare the teachings of 
Christ and the writings of the apostles, with the 
writings of Christian men in the times immediately 
following. Writers in the present day, with all the 
light afforded them by the works and history of the 
centuries past, since Christ came, occupy a much 
more advantageous position than did even the apos- 
tles ; but those who wrote in nearly the same times 
stood more on a level with them. How do the 
writings of these ancient fathers compare with those 
comprised in the book called the New Testament ? 
The contrast is most remarkable. The descent from 
the apostles to the fathers is not by a gradual 
decline, but by a steep precipice. An almost im- 
measurable chasm separates them. When the last 
epistle of the apostles was written it was most evident 
that inspiration ceased. No one, in comparing with 
the New Testament the writings of those that fol- 
lowed, would ever be in danger of supposing that 
they belonged to the same class. The latter show 
plainly the power of the men of that age ; the 
former show divine wisdom. 

Thus the perversions of the gospel by the 
unfriendly and unfaithful, the attempted improve- 
ments upon it by the wise in their own conceit, the 
imperfect exhibitions of its doctrines and precepts, 
in the words and lives of its friends, all lead us only 



SERMONS. J J 

to the more certain conclusion, as we look upon its 
transcendent superiority, that itself is not of man. 
The gospel claims to be divine. The various authors 
are far from asserting themselves to have originated 
the system of truth they teach, but point to God as 
the source of the knowledge. " Which things we 
speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teach- 
eth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth." "I certify 
to you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached 
of me is not after man. For I neither received it of 
man, neither was I taught it but by the revelation of 
Jesus Christ." For eighteen centuries since these 
words were spoken, enmity has sought to prove this 
gospel a delusion ; worldly wisdom and philosophy 
have sought to improve it ; human desire and pref- 
erence have perverted it into false systems ; friendly 
minds have sought to elaborate it into creeds and 
systems of morality ; and love has striven to realize 
its conceptions in life and character: but, high above 
all these assaults of enmity, these criticisms of 
worldly wisdom and philosophy, these perversions 
of depravity, these elaborated systems of friendly 
minds, these imperfect lives and characters of pro- 
fessed disciples, the gospel towers in sublime excel- 
lence. 

Is it the work of man, like these, its friends and 
foes, or is it the work of God ? Did Christ teach as 
only a man, and are these narratives and epistles the 
work of the simple fishermen of Galilee, and the 
disciple of Gamaliel ; or did Christ teach as the 
divine Son of God, and the apostles speak as they 
were moved by the Holy Ghost ? 



SERMON IV. 



THE ATTEST OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 

AND MANY OF THE SAMARITANS OF THAT CITY BELIEVED 
ON HIM FOR THE SAYING OF THE WOMAN WHICH TES- 
TIFIED, HE TOLD ME ALL THAT EVER I DID. JOHN 

iv. 39. 

The interview of the Saviour with the woman at 
the well of Jacob appears to have been blessed to 
her conversion. By one sentence Jesus revealed his 
knowledge of her present sinful connection, and she 
seems to have felt certain that he knew her heart. 
Her whole life of sin was at once brought so forcibly 
to her view, that she felt, as sinners often do under 
conviction, as if her evil deeds were all written upon 
her forehead, to be read plainly. Though Jesus had 
spoken to her of but one of her sins, it seemed to 
her that he had enumerated them all, and under this 
impression she hastened to the city, calling to her 
neighbors, " Come, see a man which told me all 
things that ever I did ; is not this the Christ ? " 
Jesus had plainly announced to her the facl: that he 
was the Messiah, and she had the witness within her 
that he spoke the truth, and she believed. That 



SERMONS. 79 

which convinced her of his Messiahship she doubted 
not would convince others ; and hence she pro- 
claimed her experience to them, as an evidence of 
the truth of Christ's claims. Nor did they refuse to 
receive this testimony. It is recorded, " Many Sa- 
maritans of that city believed on him, for the saying 
of the woman which testified — ' He told me all that 
ever I did.' " 

As it was with the woman of Samaria, so is it with 
the great mass of the disciples of Christ at this day. 
That which most powerfully convinces them of the 
truth of the gospel of Christ, is their personal expe- 
rience of its power, and its adaptation to their own 
spiritual necessities ; and when they would urge 
upon others the proof of its divinity, their argu- 
ments are most often such as their experience 
furnishes. Nor is it a vain appeal which Christians 
make to their own experience in proof of the doc- 
trines of the gospel. It has, as it ought to have, 
great force, and many have been constrained to 
believe the testimony. 

Christian experience does furnish legitimate evi- 
dence of the truth of the gospel doclrine. 

It gives confirmation of those very truths which 
most- offend the pride of the sceptic and first awaken 
the spirit of cavil. 

The system of morality taught in the New Testa- 
ment men are compelled, by reason and conscience, 
to accept. They can say naught against it. Neither 
do they cavil at the historical facls, because in reality 
the historic evidence of them is insufficient, but 
because of the consequence of their admission as 



8o NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

fa6ls. The miracles of gospel history, once admitted, 
establish the infallibility of gospel teaching concerning 
man's lost estate, and the way of redemption ; and it 
is hostility of heart to these humbling doctrines of 
grace, which animates the wicked warfare against the 
inspired authority of the sacred narrative. " Humility 
is the virtue of a whipped dog," 1 is the scornful 
sentiment of a leader among philosophic unbelievers; 
and repentance, faith and prayer are scouted by the 
Mills, the Huxleys and Tyndals. 

The teachings of Christ and his apostles concern- 
ing the depravity of man, his ruined condition, the 
efficacious nature of the death on Calvary ; justifica- 
tion by faith in the Redeemer, regeneration by the 
Spirit, the communion of the renewed heart with 
God ; these are the features of the gospel which 
awaken the enmity of ungodly men, and call forth 
their opposition. 

It is in such soil that historical scepticism takes 
deep root and grows rankly. 

The converted infidel at once accepts the gospel 
history. Why? Not because the historical evidence 
has been suddenly augmented ; but because the 
enmity of the heart to the doctrines of grace ceases 
to blind the soul's vision, and the true force of that 
evidence is seen. In the great battle we must wage 
with unbelief, we rejoice in the mighty weapons 
ready to our hand in the armory of historical, exter- 
nal evidence, and in the constant additions made 
thereto by exploration and research, as the years 
pass on ; but that evidence which comes to the sup- 

i Emerson. 



SERMONS. 8l 

port of the doctrines of grace directly, we esteem of 
far greater value. The historic truth of the Bible 

o 

may be accepted, while scepticism still holds the 
heart closed against its doctrines ; but if these are 
believed, scepticism will vanish. 

The experience of Christians furnishes just this 
most effective evidence. It testifies to the truth of 
the doctrines of grace, directly and positively. By 
Christian experience I mean those exercises and 
states of heart and mind, common to all who have 
become subjects of renewing grace ; such as, an 
overwhelming sense of guilt, an acquiescence in the 
justice of the condemnation pronounced upon sin, 
an earnest cry for pardon, a view of Christ as a 
Redeemer, with the exercise of personal faith and 
trust in him ; and also the resulting feelings, a sense 
of pardoned sin, peace of mind and joy, delight in, 
and spiritual communion with God and the Saviour, 
hatred of sin and hunger for righteousness. The 
subject of such exercises looks upon time, eternity, 
life, death, man, God, all things, in a new light. 
He seems to himself a new creature. Such are in 
brief the chief elements which enter into every 
Christian experience, and in multitudes of cases 
they are most clearly marked. If this experience, 
professed in millions of cases, is genuine, it 
ought surely to be received as emphatic testimony 
in favor of Christian doctrine. It is a practical 
testing; and confirmation of the truth of man's 
depraved and ruinous condition ; of the atone- 
ment ; of justification by faith ; of the Spirit's 
work in the new birth, and of spiritual com- 



52 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

munion. It is good evidence, and deserves to be 
received. 

// is appropriate, of a kind most needed ; for it 
meets scepticism at the very threshold. 

It comes directly to the support of those doctrines 
at which the evil heart is first inclined to cavil. 
These doctrines are spiritual in nature and need 
like evidence in character. To him who receives 
implicitly the teachings of the Bible, as of divine 
authority, the word written is proof. But the scep- 
tic refuses this authority. He must have evidence, 
more direct and positive than the assertions of a 
book, concerning whose origin and authorship he 
is in doubt. Christian experience is just such 
evidence. It affirms the truth of the doctrines 
taught because it has proved them true by an 
actual, personal, spiritual, acquaintance with them. 
The plain Christian declares them to be true be- 
cause he declares he has felt their truth in his own 
heart and conscience. His consciousness of the 
work, wrought in the feelings and emotions, in the 
underlying propensities and moral disposition of 
his soul, bears testimony, with such unmistakable 
voice, to the truth, that he finds it impossible to 
doubt. 

To this evidence the caviller objects as delusive. 
"The man is deluded, and is not qualified to be a 
witness in the case," says he. But he who thus 
speaks of Christian experience, betrays an ignorance 
of the matter, arising from a want of proper atten- 
tion, or a want of real candor. The truth is, the 
evidence here offered is of the same character as 



SERMONS. 83 

that on which philosophers build up their systems of 
mental and moral science. The testimony of con- 
sciousness, and the study of the various states of 
the mind, furnish them data from which to reason ; 
and why shall not the Christian draw from the same 
sources ? Is the Christian alone to be disbelieved 
when he testifies concerning what he has felt and 
experienced ? Is he to be charged with delusion 
and set aside as an unworthy witness, on the ground 
that he testifies to an experience which other men 
know not ? That men have been carried away by 
delusive feelings, I do not deny ; but for any man, 
or set of men, like religious sceptics, to assume that 
the entire Christian church, for eighteen centuries, 
have been deceived in respect to the simplest states 
of mind and feeling, and this, too, on the ground 
of their own ignorance of such feeling, is, to say 
the least, presumption, if not insolence. If men 
may not testify of their own internal changes of 
thoughts and feeling, of what can they speak with 
confidence ? 

But, passing from the consideration of the general 
character of this evidence, let us look at some of 
the details. 

What is the testimony of Christian experience 
respecting the doctrine of depravity ? 

The teaching of scripture on this point is clear, 
full, explicit. It represents man as radically de- 
praved in heart and principle, entirely destitute of 
love for God's character and law, and thoroughly 
inclined to evil. 

Here are two men, — one is a Christian, the other 



84 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

a sceptic. Once they were alike unbelievers. The 
Christian speaks here with positiveness. He knows, 
as far as he is personally concerned, that the scrip- 
ture representation is true. Once he disbelieved 
the doctrine. He was unwilling to admit himself to 
be so radically corrupt. But the truth has reached 
him. He has been made to see that scripture has 
rightly described his moral condition, and from the 
very depth of his soul has cried out, unclean ! 
unclean ! He has felt himself to be dead in tres- 
passes and sins, and that only some power without 
could quicken him to spiritual life. He can now 
speak for himself, and say, " I know the doctrine of 
depravity to be true, for I have seen my own heart." 
Is not this suitable and worthy evidence, or shall the 
sceptic's ignorance prevail against this man's knowl- 
edge ? Once these two men stood upon the same 
ground and held like opinions respecting the purity 
and nobility of human nature, and were equally 
offended by the charge of personal corruption. But 
to one of them the revelation has come ; not pro- 
cured by his personal effort or inquiry, but brought 
to him by some spiritual agency, unknown hitherto. 
The scales have fallen from his eyes, and he has 
looked down into the depths of his own nature, to 
discover what before he believed not to exist there — 
a fountain of sin. In forming opinions on the word 
of which of these two shall we place reliance? Shall 
he who -is still blind, or he who once was blind, but 
now sees, be esteemed tbe better witness ? 

What is the testimony of Christian experience 
respecting the do Brine of the new birth ? 



SERMONS. 85 

Scripture declares, that in order to a life of 
holiness and true enjoyment, man must be born 
again, renewed in his inner nature by the Holy 
Ghost, and represents such as have experienced 
this change of heart as new creatures. To them 
" old things have passed away, behold, all things 
are become new." The Christian tells us of just 
such a change, of which he has been the conscious 
subject. " I know," says he, " that it is no ordinary 
change, the result of good resolutions, or of my 
own efforts, which I have experienced. It is a more 
radical and thorough work which has gone deeper 
than the surface of my actions. It has reached my 
inner man, and affected my very tastes and moral 
dispositions, and given a new direction to my 
thoughts, desires, inclinations, affections, purposes. 
It has transformed my very heart. I feel that I 
am not in character the same man I once was : I 
have not the same views of myself, of God, of time, 
of death, of eternity ; I am a new man and all about 
me is new." To such a change the Christian tes- 
tifies in the most positive manner. The sceptic 
sneers at it as delusion. Many cavillers have done 
so, whose testimony has afterward been added to 
that of other Christians. But shall the sneer of 
the inexperienced caviller prevail against the tes- 
timony, positive and full, of the experienced Chris- 
tian ? Shall not his experience be received as 
worthy of credit ? 

It is easy for an objector to pronounce it a delu- 
sion. But let me ask the sceptic — What right have 
you to make such an assertion ? What right have 



86 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

you to claim to be believed when you make it ? Is 
it the result of a careful examination, or is it a mere 
baseless sneer? 

" I question not the man's honesty," he kindly 
says ; he doubtless believes that he has met with 
this wondrous transformation, but he is deceived." 

I ask again — Are you sure of this? How do 
you know it ? Have you entered with your piercing 
vision, the man's soul, and observed his inner life, 
more accurately than has his own consciousness ? 
In what has he deceived himself? Is he deceived, 
when he'declares, "I have met with an entire change 
in my views of sin, so that I now regard with abhor- 
rence that conduct in which I once delighted?" Is 
he deceived when he declares, " I now look upon 
holiness of heart and life as the chief thing to be 
desired, though once I regarded it with dislike ? " 
Cannot he tell whether he indeed loves that which 
he once hated ? Cannot he tell if the whole current 
of his thought and affection is turned into a new 
channel ? May he not know whether the whole aim 
and purpose of his life are directly the reverse of 
what they once were ? 

We ask you not to accept testimony from the 
impulsive, the visionary and the fickle, but from 
men of the soundest minds and clearest intellects. 
Select from this congregation or community the 
man in whose strength of mind and practical wis- 
dom you have the highest confidence. Let him be 
business man or scholar. Let him be an honest 
man, but thoroughly sceptical respecting this doc- 
trine of conversion. You know his views, and have 



SERMONS. Sy 

confidence that he will stand firm in them. Next 
Sunday morning this man shall stand before this 
congregation and declare that a remarkable change 
has taken place within him. He shall relate that, 
in connection with the reading of the scripture, 
or some meditation upon truth, a power has come 
upon him, of which he can give no account, save 
to state the fact, that there has been wrought a 
wonderful transformation. Sin in its essence, as 
rebellion against holiness and God, his own char- 
acter as a sinner, defiled, guilty, condemned, he has 
seen as never before. An agony of soul, in char- 
acter and intensity unlike anything formerly expe- 
rienced, has compelled him to cry for salvation from 
the woe — "O wretched man that I am! who shall 
deliver me from the body of this death?" At length, 
out of the great darkness, he gets a glimpse of Jesus 
as a personal Saviour, and out of overwhelming dis- 
tress cries, " O Lamb of God, take away my sin ! " 
At once he becomes sweetly conscious of a personal 
friendship between Christ and his own soul. His 
burden of sin has fled, and an unwonted peace 
reigns in his heart. The character of God is glo- 
rious to his view. The Word, before dark and 
threatening, is all luminous with truth, and glowing 
with promise ; his fellow men have all become his 
brethren : the motives of his life are changed, and 
he is, throughout, a new creature. 

Now, will you believe him ? Why not ? Is he 
not a man worthy of credit ? You so esteemed him 
one week ago — is he so no longer? Does the very 
fact that he professes to have experienced this 



88 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

change make him false, or disqualify him to bear 
witness concerning it? 

You say — "this is very strange; it is a great mys- 
tery ; you have never known anything like this in 
your own inner life." Very well. Does all this make 
the man a false or unreliable witness ? But is there 
any such witness as has been described ? Yes, hun- 
dreds of them. They sit with you to-day in this 
congregation. They have often spoken, and are 
ready at any time to testify to you of this truth. 
You ought to accept their testimony as in the 
highest degree reliable. If men cannot testify in 
regard to such wonderful changes in their thoughts, 
feelings, affections, desires, purposes, as Christians 
positively declare themselves to have experienced, 
then can they say nothing respecting the states of 
their own minds — then is consciousness, itself, 
unworthy of credit as a witness. He who refuses 
such testimony of Christians, ought to be consistent, 
and reject, as unworthy of credit, all that his fellow 
men say respecting their own states of mind and 
feeling. But to the unprejudiced, honest inquirer, 
it will always come, as it ever has come, with con- 
vincing power. 

The value of the evidence in favor of the truths of 
the gospel, afforded by Christian experience, is greatly 
augmented by its uniformity. 

Though the accounts which different Christians 
give of their conversion vary much in particulars, 
yet it will be found invariably true that they agree in 
essential character. The greater or less intensity of 
feeling and the length and variety of exercises will 



SERMONS. 89 

be found to have had their origin in the previous 
character and education, the particular truths which 
were before the mind, and the attendant circum- 
stances of the conversion, while the essential fea- 
tures which mark a work of grace will appear the 
same in all cases. 

But it is not to that which is technically called 
experience, that is, the exercises of mind which 
precede and accompany the first feelings of affec- 
tionate trust and joy and peace in the soul, that I 
would confine attention, but rather would embrace 
the whole of the Christian's spiritual exercises, from 
the first to the last, while he lives. In these expe- 
riences we find a most marked uniformity. 

In essence, all Christians tell the same story; they 
testify to the same things. The evidence which has 
been adduced concerning human depravity and the 
new birth comes, not from one man only, or from a 
few, or from hundreds or thousands, but from 
millions, yea, from the whole church of the true 
disciples for eighteen centuries. It has been the 
same in past ages, as it is now. The experience of 
John Bunyan, though in particulars it may differ 
from that of many, yet gives the same evidence of 
the truth of the essential docirines of grace. 

It was out of his own heart that he wrote his 
Pilgrim's Progress, and its reception, everywhere, 
has been owing to the truthful representation of 
Christian experience which it contains. The learned 
scholars of the world would have scorned to reckon 
it worthy of a place in their libraries ; but Christians 
everywhere found it a faithful mirror of themselves, 

T 



90 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

and they cherished it and it lived and circulated over 
the Christian world, till at length literary critics are 
compelled to pronounce its merits. 

So it is : wherever are found Christians, there will 
be found the same testimony to the same experience. 
Learning or ignorance, youth or age, enlightened or 
savage life, alter not man's essential character, nor 
do they change the nature of the testimony which 
his Christian experience gives, in favor of gospel 
truth. 

Let one read the missionary journals and note 
this uniformity. Oncken and the German Chris- 
tians, the disciples among the French, the Italians, 
the Greeks, the nations of Asia Minor, the Burmans 
and Karens, the Indians of North America, the 
dwellers on the islands of the sea, and the enlight- 
ened men of our own land, all tell the same story, 
when grace renews their hearts. And shall this 
essential uniformity of experience go for nothing ? 
Does it add nothing to the value of the testimony 
given, that men of every age, nation, condition and 
character, testify to the same things ? 

Men of high rank, of profound learning, of most 
discriminating minds, of unimpeachable veracity, and 
men of low rank, profoundly ignorant and debased ; 
the gray headed, the middle aged, the youth, the 
child ; the enlightened inmates of university halls, 
and the degraded bushmen of South Africa, dwel- 
ling in holes and caves of the earth, all give one 
uniform testimony, when grace renews their hearts, 
to the truth taught them by experience. My hearer, 
can you lightly esteem this fact ? 



S E R M O N S . 91 

But again, the strong and abiding conviction 
of the truths of the gospel, which always attends 
Christian experience, adds great value to the tes- 
timony. 

Those who are truly converted by the grace of 
God are always most thoroughly convinced of the 
truth of the doctrines thus taught them. They hold 
no wavering belief. They are most confident in 
their opinions. They speak of these truths as they 
who know of what they speak — as men speak of 
things of which their senses have taken cognizance. 
What they have seen and felt and handled of the 
word of life they declare. 

Attempt to convince them of folly in believing 
such doctrines. Speculate, reason with them, con- 
found them by subtle argument, and still they will 
not yield up their confidence in the truth. They 
know what they have believed. No matter though 
they may be so ignorant as to be unable to 
state the reasons for their belief, they still believe 
with a confidence which cannot be shaken. They 
have the witness within them ; the Spirit of God 
has written it upon their hearts. Nothing can drive 
out of their mind the conviction fastened on them 
by their experience. They would as soon doubt of 
what their eyes have seen as of what their hearts 
have felt. 

This thorough, unwavering belief of the truth, 
which everywhere prevails, among Christians, goes 
to establish the genuineness of the experience which 
has taught them. Delusion soon passes away, and 
men discover their error in trusting to it ; but as 



92 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

years pass by the Christian becomes more and more 
established in his belief. 

The testimony of Christian experience has more 
force from this fact also, that 

It is addressed so dir eerily to the hearts and con- 
sciences of men, and points them to a redemption of 
which they have in many cases felt the need. 

The doctrines of depravity, the new birth, the 
atonement, and of spiritual influence, presented in 
clear, positive statements to the intellect, men more 
easily reject ; but when they are woven into a Chris- 
tian experience, and thus taught in their practical 
relations, the -very men who before rejected, find, 
themselves constrained to admit the truth. As the 
Christian relates the exercises of his mind, which 
involve these very doctrines, the hearer feels that 
there is a truthfulness in them which he cannot 
gainsay. It is just what his heart and conscience 
tell him he ought himself to experience. He knows 
that he is guilty and needs forgiveness ; he knows 
that he is under condemnation and needs a 
Redeemer ; he knows that he is inclined to sin 
and needs a renewal of heart ; and when he hears a 
fellow man relate exercises which bring to view, 
clearly and forcibly, truths like these, he is con- 
strained to confess himself convinced of them. 

The mere doctrinal statement of the truth he can 
more easily deal with. It is an abstraction. He 
can attack it with his logic, tear it to pieces, scatter 
it to the winds, and rejoice in his intellectual exploit. 
But when the same truth takes form, becomes incar- 
nate in, a personal history, and speaks to him out of 



SERMONS. 93 

a living soul, he cannot dissolve it by processes of 
logic, any more than he can dissolve, into thin air, 
the living, speaking man before him. He cannot 
ignore or gainsay it, any more than he can ignore 
and gainsay the reality of many other wonderful 
personal histories of which he knows the fact. 

While the doctrines of the reformation were mak- 
ing progress at the University of Cambridge in the 
sixteenth century, Latimer was a bigoted Catholic, 
and by his sarcastic and violent lectures against the 
new doctrines, had gained great distinction among 
zealous papists. " England," said his hearers, after 
the delivery of a discourse against Melancthon, "will 
furnish a champion for the church that will confront 
the Wittenberg doctors, and save the vessel of our 
Lord." But one of his hearers — a quiet, humble 
student of the gospel, who had been converted by 
reading the New Testament — resolved to make the 
attempt to win this champion of error to the truth, 
as it is in Jesus. Knowing that it would be vain to 
attempt argument, he determined, like the apostle, 
to catch him with guile. Entering the study of Lat- 
imer, he exclaimed, " for the love of God be pleased 
to hear my confession." The heretic Bilney prays to 
make confession to the catholic. Latimer was taken 
by surprise, and thought his discourse against 
Melancthon had converted him, and saw, in imagi- 
nation, a crowd led to the church of Rome by this 
example. Bilney kneeled before the confessor, and 
related, in a simple and touching manner, his own 
experience. He told of the burden of sin he had 
felt, his struggles for relief, which were vain so long 



94 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

as he followed the direction of the priests, and then 
how, by the light of the New Testament, he beheld 
Jesus as a personal Saviour and trusted in him and 
felt peace. He described the change wrought in his 
soul, the spirit of adoption he now possessed, and 
spoke of the spiritual communion he enjoyed. Lat- 
imer had listened, without mistrust, and the words 
of Bilney penetrated his soul like sharp arrows. He 
was convinced, at once, and his conversion, like that 
of Saul, was instantaneous. From that hour he 
became a zealous defender of the faith he once 
destroyed, and thus continued till, under the bloody 
Mary, he gave a final confirmation of his faith by a 
martyr's death. 

A similar effect, often attends the testimony of a 
Christian experience. It speaks to the heart, and 
every man who has reflected upon his moral nature 
and state with candor, feels a response to its truth- 
fulness, coming up from the depth of his soul, of 
which he cannot easily rid himself. It is legitimate 
evidence of the truth of the gospel. 

In closing, allow the remark to those who profess 
to be Christians, that our subject suggests : 

A test by which the genuineness of their own expe- 
riences may be tried. Does your experience, my 
friend, illustrate and prove the doctrines of grace ? 
The doctrine of entire depravity. Does your expe- 
rience prove that ? Of the new birth. Do you find, 
in yourself, the marks and evidences of such a radi- 
cal change in thought, feeling, affection, purpose, as 
this which scripture describes? The communion 
with God, the justifying and peace giving faith in a 



SERMONS. 95 

personal Christ, the love which passeth description. 
Does your experience find these true ? Brethren, 
here is a call for self examination. May God's grace 
guard us against self deception. 

Allow me also to urge upon my unconverted 
hearers, 

The wisdom and duty of giving heed to the evidence 
of the truth of the gospel which Christian experie?ice 
affords. 

It is legitimate evidence. It is direct, and posi- 
tive, and uniform, and persistent. It comes from 
those in whose honesty and soundness of judgment 
and purity of life you have confidence, and whose 
sincerity is attested to you, by their unhesitating and 
hearty venturing of their own eternal interests, upon 
the truth they declare. " Some years ago, a lawyer 
in Vermont found his way into a Methodist love- 
feast. Supposing that he should hear some strange 
things, he went prepared to take notes. At the 
close of the meeting, he arose and addressed the 
assembly as follows, ' My friends, I hold in my hands 
the testimony of no less than sixty persons, who 
have spoken here this morning, who all testify, with 
one consent, that there is a divine reality in religion, 
they having experienced its power in their own 
hearts. Many of these persons I know. Their 
word would be received in any court of justice. 
Lie, they would not, I know, and mistaken they 
cannot all be. I have heretofore been sceptical in 
relation to these matters. I now tell you that I am 
fully convinced of the truth, and that I intend to 
lead a new life. Will you pray for me ? ' " Who of 



96 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

you can convicl: him of folly in this conclusion ? 
Who of you are not convicted of folly, that you 
have not long since done likewise ? Have you not 
similar testimony of many of your neighbors and 
friends, in whose discrimination and practical good 
sense you have the highest confidence ; to whom 
you would go for counsel in the most difficult affairs ? 
And, in addition, have you not the' testimony of mul- 
titudes, the world over, the generations through ? 
Why then do you not receive the truth and be 
saved ? Say, shall this host of witnesses rise up to 
witness against you in the last day ? 



SERMON V, 



THE ENORMITY OF LITTLE SINS. 

FOR REBELLION IS AS THE SIN OF WITCHCRAFT, AND 

STUBBORNNESS IS AS INIQUITY AND IDOLATRY. I 

SAMUEL XV. 23. 

While Saul was king of Israel, he received, 
through the prophet Samuel, a direct and positive 
command from God, to gather his army and utterly 
destroy the nation of Amalek, with all that pertained 
to them. " Now go, and smite Amalek, and utterly 
destroy all that they have, and spare them not ; but 
slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox 
and sheep, camel and ass." This was a fearful sen- 
tence ; but it was God's righteous judgment against 
a corrupt and guilty people whom he would blot 
from the earth. 

Saul proceeded to obey, and easily overthrew 
these enemies of God. But he did not perform all 
that was commanded him, for he " spared the king, 
Agag, and the best of the sheep and oxen and the 
fatlings and lambs, and all that was good, and would 
not utterly destroy them ; but everything that was 
vile and refuse that he destroyed utterly." For this 



98 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

omission, God was greatly displeased with Saul, and 
sent Samuel to denounce against him the severe 
punishment — that he was rejected from being king 
over Israel. When the prophet came to the king 
with this sentence, Saul sought to defend himself 
against the charge of sin, by claiming that he had 
fulfilled the main work commanded, and had only 
departed from the directions in trifling particulars, 
and that, even, with a good intent. "Wherefore 
didst thou not obey the voice of the Lord, said 
Samuel, but didst fly upon the spoil, and -didst evil 
in the sight of the Lord?" "And Saul said unto 
Samuel, Yea, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord, 
and have gone the way which the Lord sent me, and 
have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and have 
utterly destroyed the Amalekites. But the people 
took of the spoil, sheep and oxen ; the chief of the 
things that should have been utterly destroyed, to 
sacrifice unto the Lord thy God in Gilgal." 

But such special pleading was not allowed by 
Samuel. He at once showed Saul its fallacy, by 
this pertinent question, — " Hath the Lord as great 
delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obey- 
ing the voice of the Lord?" "Behold, to obey is 
better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of 
rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and 
stubbornness as iniquity and idolatry." 

It is God's prerogative to command. It is man's 
duty to obey implicitly ; it is not his privilege, by 
the substitution of some other conduct in the place 
of that required; to impeach the wisdom of his Sov- 
ereign. Thus to amend God's command is to rebel 



SERMONS. 99 

aeainst him. It is a stubborn adherence to one's 
own wisdom rather than submission to God's, and 
he regards it with no more favor than he does witch- 
craft and idolatry. Saul had flattered himself that 
his departure from the strict command, in minor 
details, would not seriously depreciate his general 
obedience to the order given. But — like many 
another man — he grossly deceived himself. Sam- 
uel showed him that God regarded this departure as 
a grave offence, fit only to be compared to the most 
heinous sins known in Israel — witchcraft and idola- 
try ; and that the penalty would correspond in 
severity. " Because thou hast rejected the word of 
the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being 
king." 

As it was with Saul, so has it been, so is it still, 
with multitudes of sinners. Many of their sins they 
esteem of trifling consequence, scarcely needing to 
be repented of, and surely deserving of no severe 
penalty. But God judges sin by no such standard. 
In his sight, all sin is rebellion and stubbornness, 
of the same essential character as witchcraft and 
idolatry. 

That there are different degrees of demerit in sins 
may well be admitted. We are taught this by reason 
and scripture. There are many elements which go 
to make up the heinousness of any act of transgres- 
sion. We must consider the natural disposition of 
the man ; the degree of light possessed by him, or 
within his reach ; the degree of malice or other evil 
quality in the motive ; the influence under which the 
act was committed — whether it was induced by sud- 



IOO NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

den and strong temptation, or without any prompt- 
ings, save those which an evil heart supplied. Thus 
only, can we arrive at a just estimate of the compar- 
ative guilt of any sin. That God does thus view the 
sins of men, we have reason to believe, from the 
teachings of his word ; but that any palliations can 
do away with sin's enormity and make it a trifling 
matter, in his sight, there is no reason for believing. 
In God's sight, some sins may be of greater guilt 
than others, but none are small. 

To this thought, — the enormity of little sins, — 
let us give attention. 

I. God's law requires perfection. 

I know men do not like to think that their con- 
duct is to be tried by such a standard, and they 
make a thousand plausible excuses and pleas, all of 
which proceed upon the assumption that a certain 
degree of sin God will overlook in those whose lives, 
in the main, are right. 

But all this is deceit and practical infidelity. God's 
law is the standard of human conduct, and God's 
law is perfect. How do we maintain the divine origin 
of the law contained in the sacred volume, except 
by this very fact that it is perfect? Could the denier 
of revelation fix, upon the moral law of the Bible, 
one clear and obvious defect, either in its positive 
requirements, or in the omission of any which ought 
to be made, how quickly would it be seized upon as 
the basis of an argument against the divine authority 
of the scripture! With what eagerness have sceptics 
sought such imperfection, that they might overthrow 
confidence in the divine Word! But their search has 



SERMONS. IOI 

been in vain. Did the Bible contain such a law as 
men would be willing to receive as the standard of 
their conduct, that very law in its imperfection would 
be sufficient proof that the Bible could not have had 
God as its Author. To attribute such a law to God 
is the same thing as to attribute to him imperfection, 
and to assail his holiness and purity. This men are 
practically doing, when they set up a lower standard 
than perfection, as the rule of judgment. They are 
willing to cast a stain upon God, in the attempt to 
justify themselves. They would make him approve 
an imperfect law, that they may not be charged with 
guilt for imperfect conduct. Can it be a matter of 
trifling consequence, thus to traduce the character of 
Jehovah, in order to do away with the guilt of sin ? 
Can that be a sin of small moment, which, if admitted 
and approved by him, would destroy his glorious 
perfection, in the sight of his creatures ? And yet 
any sin, however small it may appear, in the view of 
men, if admitted by the law of God, would forever 
stain his holy character. 

Can Jehovah then regard sin as of little enormity? 
Nay, all sin in his sight is abominable — the thing 
which his soul hateth. 

The standard which he has given, and which alone 
he could give, consistently with his holy character, is 
that contained in the words of the Saviour, when, 
teaching with authority, he said to the multitudes — 
"Be ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven is 
perfect." Every departure from this is a sin ; and 
every sin in God's sight is heinous. It is a violation 
of his command, and though through Christ he can 



102 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

pardon, yet he cannot ignore or cease to condemn it. 
" How can it be supposed possible," said a flippant 
caviller to a poor, ignorant Christian, one day, " that 
God would destroy Adam and his descendants only 
for eating an apple?" ''It was not," he replied, "that 
our first parents had only eaten some kind of fruit ; 
it was that they disobeyed God ; it was that they 
broke the order." There is great force in the simple 
reply. All sin breaks the order. Men are prone to 
estimate the guilt of sin by the immediate and obvi- 
ous evil effects, and do not take into account this 
most important element — that it is a violation of a 
command of God. We may say of those sins usually 
deemed trifling, as did the simple-hearted Christian. 
It is not that the committer of the deed has done so 
great and obvious an injury to others about him : it 
is that he has disobeyed God ; that he has broken 
the order. To disobey God, to break through his 
command, can never be justly esteemed trivial. The 
least sin is heinous. 

This will be more apparent when regarded from 
another point of view : 

2. The greatness of depravity which even little sins 
presuppose. 

So accustomed to sin and its effects are we, that 
we do not stay to estimate correctly the depravity 
from which it springs. It is not possible for us to 
comprehend fully the just demerit of any transgres- 
sion ; but we may approximate a just view in no 
way better perhaps, than by contrasting the state of 
heart of a pure sinless being with that of one who, 
for the first time, has committed sin. 



SERMONS. IO3 

Look, then, upon this angel, who has ever lived in 
entire conformity to the will of his God : who in 
every act and thought has met the divine approval. 
No unholy desire has ever found place in his heart. 
He has never had a wish other than to obey. Filled 
with love and gratitude to his Maker and King, he 
delights in paying him adoration and praise. He is 
pure, holy and happy. But let him once disobey 
that Sovereign, in the least particular of his com- 
mand, and how great the change! He has broken 
the law, and has become a transgressor. He stands 
no longer erect in his integrity ; his soul is stained 
with sin ; unholy desire has found a place in his 
heart ; holiness no longer appears most lovely and 
sin most odious, for he has chosen the latter, in 
the place of the former. Fear, and shame, and a 
sense of guilt take the place of conscious rectitude. 
The holy being has fallen ; he has tasted the filthy 
cup of sin and the baneful effect of the draught is 
felt in all his nature. He is defiled : he is no longer 
a fit resident of the holy place, nor a fit companion 
for unfallen spirits. He would contaminate heaven 
by his presence ; and should he strike his harp, it 
would jar with harsh discord, in the heavenly choir. 
Could he join in that anthem of the pure ones and 
cry holy ! holy ! holy ! unto the Lord ? Ah no, — 
sin, sin, sin is in his heart, and that word of praise 
would be a lie upon his lips. Holiness is not the 
supreme desire of his heart ; for he has chosen sin, 
in its stead ; and that one act has proved a heart 
depraved, turned away from God, the Holy One. 

Let us look upon him, while deliberating the act 



104 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

that has ruined him, and see if this is not the truth. 
The temptation is set before him. He turns not 
away from it, in haste and holy fear, but hesitates 
and parleys. " Shall I do this deed and sin against 
my God?" he asks. Conscience replies, "Do it 
not!" Inclination prompts to try a forbidden thing. 
Then arises a struggle. Conscience and reason 
resist, saying, God commands — obey him — yield 
not to sin — touch not the unclean thing. The 
heart, already perverse through parleying, offers 
excuses, promises gratification, persuades to the 
evil, till conscience is overcome and sin is chosen 
in the place of holiness — a base idol, in the place 
of God. Does it not appear that the heart which 
can thus deliberately turn from God and holiness, 
and take the sinful gratification, though it be never 
so slight, renounces, in that very aft, its allegiance 
and becomes thoroughly depraved? No matter what 
the precise charafter of the aft, the essence of the 
guilt is in the choice, which can come to pass only 
when the heart is surrendered up to depravity, and 
as great, and as heinous as is that depravity, so great, 
so heinous is the sin. 

Some one may say, " I admit the heinousness of 
such a deliberate sin, but my little sins are not thus 
deliberately done; they are the result of heed- 
lessness." 

But this, my friend, does not, in faft, show less 
depravity. You do not deliberate; you do not stop 
to weigh consequences; you are thoughtless, in your 
little sins. What does this prove to be the charafter 
of the heart from which such conduft proceeds? 



SERMONS. IO5 

Does it not show you to be so insensible to God's 
holy character and law, so utterly careless of your 
obligation to listen to his voice and obey his will, 
that you account it not worth your while to stay and 
deliberate, when tempted to do evil? Can the Most 
High God be ignored, thus, without exceeding guilt? 
Could you be thus insensible, thus heedless, were 
you not wofully depraved ? Is not this the meaning 
of your little sins? Little sins ! 

In the commission of sin, 

3. Men cast exceeding contempt upon the wisdom 
of God. 

By the very carelessness and heedlessness in 
which they indulge, and the low estimate which they 
put upon their guilt, they say, emphatically, that the 
law which they violate is of little account, and that 
God has shown no especial wisdom in framing it. 
This law is altogether too particular, too strict; it is 
not necessary to pay much attention to it, in these 
minor matters. If one does break through some 
of its requirements, not much harm is done. Per- 
fection cannot be expected of us mortals. 

If the conduct and sentiments of men who speak 
of little sins, do not, when translated into plain lan- 
guage, mean just this, what, pray, is the true 
interpretation ? 

Now, what exceeding contempt of God's perfect 
law is this! It is no less than proclaiming that 
God's holy law may do well enough in theory, but 
as a practical standard, by which to judge human 
conduct, it will not answer at all. Such is the con- 
tempt which men, by their little sins of which they 
v 



106 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

take no account, cast upon God's wisdom. Is there 
no enormity here? These are the men who set aside 
God's universal command, "Do right," and in their 
own wisdom substitute another, "Do about right." 
Saul did so. He did what he considered about 
right, when he obeyed, in general; but departed 
from the striclness of the command, and " spared 
the best of the sheep and oxen ; " intending to make 
it all right, by offering a portion of them in sacrifice 
unto the Lord God in Gilgal. But God made him 
to understand that obedience was better than sac- 
rifice, and that the sin which he accounted trivial 
was of sufficient enormity to bring down on him the 
severest penalty, even the loss of his throne. So, 
in the final reckoning, will all men find it. Little 
sins will be seen to be great, and fearful will be the 
penalty. 

The enormity of little sins appears in this : 
4. By them men show that they prefer the slightest 
sinful gratification, to the honor of God and of his 
law. 

The smaller the sin the greater the contempt 
of the .law violated. If a kind father should com- 
mand his son to do some duty, which would interfere 
but slightly with his own inclinations, the perform- 
ance of which would necessitate but a small sacrifice 
of his own wishes, and that son should show an 
entire indifference to the will of his father, and 
should choose some mean gratification, instead of 
obedience, should we look upon the offence against 
that father's love as trivial, because the matter in 
which he showed this disregard of his father's will 



SERMONS. IO7 

was in itself small ? Rather would not the reproach 
be cast upon him in this wise: "What, would he 
not forego so slight a gratification, in deference to a 
father's command ? Could he trample on the love 
of a parent so easily ? " Should we not estimate 
his guilt rather the greater, in proportion as the 
occasion was trivial and the influence of temptation 
weak ? 

So with sinners. The holy law requires obedience 
in a given case. " But," says the sinner, " this is a 
trifling matter " — and at once he breaks through the 
positive command, to gain the confessedly small 
gratification. He weighs God's holy law in the 
scales ; and the smallest fragments, the very dust of 
sinful desire, will make the opposite beam ascend. 

The smaller the desire and the meaner the appe- 
tite gratified in disobedience, the greater is the 
contempt for the law broken. Is there then, no 
enormity in little sins ? Say, fellow sinner, who so 
carelessly and for so small a benefit, daily art tram- 
pling God's commands beneath your feet, can you 
claim to have in your heart any regard for him in 
whom you live and move and have your being ? 

But still farther, we may gain some idea of God's 
estimation of such sins by 

5. The fearful consequences attached to them. 

In measuring the guilt of sin, by such a standard, 
it is taken for granted that every man is to be held 
responsible for the natural consequences of his con- 
duct. Still more, it will not be allowed, as an 
excuse, that the man did not know, when commit- 
ting a sin, what the results would be, or even that 



108 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

he could not have known them. This he knew — 
that the act was forbidden by God's law, and that 
the consequences must therefore be evil, and may 
be fearful. If with such knowledge, he enters upon 
the action, he does it forewarned ; he does it at his 
own peril, and must take the responsibility of the 
evil that will follow ; he may have sought to per- 
suade himself that no evil will follow, but this avails 
him nothing. God has told him that all sin is evil, 
and its consequences are only evil ; and of how 
fearful a nature that evil may prove to be, no man 
can foreknow. "In the day thou eatest thereof, 
thou shalt surely die ! " He who with such a knowl- 
edge — and who has it not ? — chooses to indulge 
in any sin, must abide by the consequences of his 
choice: no apology can free him from the respon- 
sibility. 

And how great is the evil which we often see to 
flow from sins which, in the estimation of their 
authors, are esteemed trivial! How many children 
have received an essential modification of character 
from a single evil remark, or a single evil example 
of a parent! How many a fatal accident, to the 
lives and well being of multitudes, has resulted from 
the culpable neglect of some duty deemed slight, or 
from the performance of some heedless act! They 
whose conduct has been thus evil in its results, 
knew that it was evil, when they did the deed, and 
must stand responsible. 

No man knows, when he does a wrong, that it will 
not result in unmeasured evil. He knows that he 
ought to refrain from it, and if, with this before him, 



SERMONS. IO9 

he ventures upon it, his sin, however trivial it may 
appear to him, must be measured, by the unknown 
amount of evil he is willing to risk to himself and to 
others, in order to indulge in it. 

But the more common consequences of little sins, 
and which it is the most fearful to contemplate, are 
their effects upon the moral character of those who 
commit them. In this view, it is hardly possible to 
estimate their enormity. It is, by no means, by 
great crimes chiefly, that men increase in depravity. 
It is by the constant repetition of those actions, con- 
sidered by their authors almost too trivial to deserve 
the name of sins, that men harden their hearts in 
wickedness. Little by little, they blunt the edge of 
their consciences, and cultivate the evil passions and 
appetites of their depraved nature. Little by little, 
the intemperate man increases his love for strong 
drink, till at length the appetite becomes his master, 
and he falls into the drunkard's degredation. Little 
by little, the worldling strengthens his yearning after 
the treasures of earth, till he becomes the miser and 
worships gold as his God. 

In like manner, by insensible degrees, do all men 
grow hardened in sin ; and it is by indulgence in 
those sins, deemed trivial, that the work is effected. 
But are they trivial ; can they be trivial, when such 
fearful consequences legitimately flow from them ? 
No, my hearers, they are not trivial. 

No sin can be of slight enormity in the sight of 
God; and as sin is, in the sight of God, so is it in 
reality. In proportion as we approach him in purity 
of character, in that proportion shall we see sin as 



IIO NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

he does. In our present darkened and depraved 
state, we cannot justly estimate it ; but we can see 
and know enough to make it appear terrible in its 
enormity. It is violation of the positive command 
of God ; it is deadly poison in the soul of man ; it is 
all evil, only evil, an enormous evil, wherever found 
and whatever the circumstances of its commission. 

In the light of this discussion is it not safe to 
infer that, 

i. Many who, in this life, esteem themselves s?7tall 
sinners, will find a fearful catalogue of black enor- 
mities charged against them, at the day of judgment. 

Oh, with what different eyes will they look upon 
the lives which they now regard with so much com- 
placency. How dazzlingly brilliant will then appear 
the perfection of God's law! How thoroughly vile 
and black that depravity of heart which ignored the 
divine holiness embodied in his command! How 
exceedingly base and wicked that contempt, heed- 
lessly cast upon divine wisdom ! How infinitely 
foolish and guilty that choice of trifling gratifica- 
tions, before God's honor and love! And how ter- 
rible the consequences seen justly attached to 
those deeds which sinners once thought trivial ! 
Overwhelmed with shame, remorse and fear, they 
accept the sentence and sink to their doom. 

We are taught by our subject that 

2. The only safety is to avoid even the appearance 
of evil. 

Sin is too vile and corrupt a thing in its nature, 
too terrible a thing in its consequences, to be trifled 
with. "Fools make a mock of sin." "As a mad- 



SERMONS. Ill 

man, who casteth firebrands, arrows, and death ; so 
is the man that deceiveth his neighbor, and saith, 
Am not I in sport?" "Can a man take fire into his 
bosom and his clothes not be burned?" "Can one 
go upon the coals and his feet not be burned?" Ah, 
beware, dear friend, of this fire of sin. The least 
spark, cherished in the heart, may kindle a confla- 
gration that shall consume, in its terribly avenging 
flames, thy soul and all its powers. 

Finally, let us all take to ourselves the warning 
which our subjecl brings: 

3. As all have sinned thus heinously, all stand in 
perishing need of the mercy of God through Christ; 
and all must seek and obtain it or perish forever. 

Let there be no foolish pride in our hearts, in this 
our sad extremity. Let us not think to build our- 
selves up on self merit, and make a compromise 
with a holy God, and gain salvation because of good- 
ness remaining- in us. We are sinners; we are 
corrupted by sin ; we are under a fearful condemna- 
tion for sin ; we are lost, and Jesus only can save us. 
Oh, while he is so freely offering us his forgiving, 
his redeeming love, let us not wait, but fly to his 
arms, and find salvation there. 

"He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting 
life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see 
life; but the wrath of God abideth on him." 



SERMON VI 



THE CHRISTIAN'S VOCATION. 

I THEREFORE, THE PRISONER OF THE LORD, BESEECH YOU 
THAT YE WALK WORTHY OF THE VOCATION WHEREWITH 
YE ARE CALLED. EPHESIANS IV. I. 

The apostle exhorts his brethren to a state of 
mind, and a life becoming their high estate and 
blessed privileges. Let us seek to devolop the 
idea of the text for our own instruction and help, 
by the consideration of three questions : By whom 
are Christians called? To what are they called? 
And what is it to walk worthy of their calling? 

I. By whom are Christians called ? 

We may briefly answer the first question in Paul's 
words to the Corinthians : " God is faithful by whom 
ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son ;" and 
to the Thessalonians : "Walk worthy of God who 
hath called you unto his kingdom and glory ; " to the 
Romans: "Among whom are ye also the called of 
Jesus Christ." It is the divine Father who has 
called them, by his grace, from the ways of sin, and 
from spiritual death, and renewed them, by his 
power, in the inward man. This doctrine of sov- 



SERMONS. 113 

ereign, efficacious grace is made especially prom- 
inent in the Scriptures. 

The inspired writers appear jealous, lest Chris- 
tians may take to themselves some of the glory of 
their return to God ; and they are careful to state in 
the strongest and most explicit terms, the truth that 
their gracious condition is the result of God's inter- 
posing mercy, which has chosen them in their sin, 
and called them to himself. They are "brands 
plucked from the burning" — subjects of renewing 
grace which has taken them in their depravity and 
wrought them into new men. "And you hath he 
quickened." "Not by works of righteousness which 
we have done, but according to his mercy he saved 
us by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of 
the Holy Ghost." "We are his workmanship, 
created in Christ Jesus unto good works." The 
inspired teachers do not represent men as inactive 
in this great change; but they emphasize the fact 
that divine grace anticipates their action and brings 
their wills, by its gentle and powerful influence, into 
unison with the will of God. 

It is by the word of truth, the apostle James 
assures us, and of his own will, that the Spirit 
begets us unto a new life. The work is styled a 
new creation. Thus are Christians called, and it 
is God that calls them. 

II. To WHAT ARE CHRISTIANS CALLED? To priv- 
ileges, to duties, to rewards. 

/. Christians are called to be the sons of God. 

All men are the children of God. He is the 
universal Father of his creatures. On his bounty 
w 



114 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

they are fed. The arrangements of his providence 
manifest his care and his love. 

But, in a peculiar and emphatic sense, God recog- 
nizes the sonship of those who have believed on the 
Lord Jesus Christ. These are not his by creation 
and preservation only, but by redemption and adop- 
tion also. They were once lost, but now are found 
again — lost from the ranks of obedience, found 
among God's enemies, and brought back and 
adopted into his holy family. They were once 
dead, but now are alive again — dead in trespasses 
and sins, but by the grace of the Spirit brought to 
a newness of life in Christ Jesus. God has thus 
chosen them, united them to his blessed family by 
adoption, and has given them all the privileges of 
sons. 

And oh, what riches of grace are involved in this 
sonship ! 

(i) It insures the love of an infinite Parent. 

"Behold," is the fervid exclamation of a disciple 
who had meditated much upon the blessed privi- 
leges of God's children, "what manner of love the 
Father hath bestowed on us, that we should be 
called the sons of God." 

It is a love not simply of benevolence or pity, 
like that exercised towards all sinning creatures, 
manifested in the provision and offer of salvation, 
but it is the love of a parent who delights in the 
children of his adoption, and counts them his own. 
His grace has renewed them, and he beholds in 
them the beginnings of those holy affections and 
divine traits, which, in their full development, shall 



S E R M O N S . 115 

make them like himself. They are his workman- 
ship, and shall at length be perfected in holiness. 
He has begotten them by his Spirit and called 
them by his name. "They shall be mine, saith the 
Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my 
jewels." Oh, what a joy is this, to the Christian, to 
know that God, the great Sovereign of the Uni- 
verse, looks upon him, not with the pitying love of 
compassion alone, but with the complacent delight of 
a parent ! To be looked upon with pity by the God 
whom we have offended, and to be permitted to come 
and seek for his mercy, with the assurance that the 
penitent cry will never be disregarded, is surely a 
privilege for which guilty men cannot be too grate- 
ful ; but to feel that our sins have been washed away 
by the blood of Christ, and that we have been 
adopted into the heavenly family, and that God 
looks upon us with complacent love, as a parent 
upon an obedient child, — oh, who can tell the near- 
ness of access to the throne *of grace, and the sweet- 
ness of communion with the Father of our spirits, 
which such an assurance gives ! This is the blessed 
assurance of faith. The Christian is an adopted 
child of God. "I will receive you, and will be a 
Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daugh- 
ters, saith the Lord Almighty." 

This relationship insures to the Christian, 

(2) The tender care of the heavenly parent. 

That God cares for all his creatures, rational and 

irrational, we know. " His tender mercies are over all 

his works, and he openeth his hand and satisfieth the 

wants of every living thing." " Not a sparrow falls 



Il6 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

to the ground without his notice." But a special 
care does he exercise over his adopted ones. For 
them alone, his word assures us, are his provi- 
dences so ordered that " all things work together 
for their good." No real evil can approach them, 
"for the Lord is their help and their shield." 
No earthly parent can have so tender an interest 
in the welfare of his children, and none knows, so 
well, in what that welfare consists ; nor is any pos- 
sessed of power like him to ward off the evil and 
bring the good. An earthly parent may forget or 
neglect to care, as he ought, for a child, in the 
multiplicity of his other cares ; but no such thing 
can be said of our heavenly parent. He will ever 
be mindful of his covenant. An earthly parent may 
grow weary and faint in his charge; but "He that 
keepeth Israel never slumbers nor sleeps." An 
earthly parent, even in his most tender solicitude, 
may commit most fearful errors, but with God 
dwelleth perfect wisdom. An earthly parent may 
exercise the most constant care ; but of necessity 
his power is limited, and often he is compelled to 
look on and see his loved ones perish, while he 
cannot help them. But the Father who dwells 
above is God ; and never may his children trust in 
him in vain, " for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting 
strength." 

Another blessed privilege of God's children is, 

(3) Heirship. 

"The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, 
that we are children of God ; and if children, then 
heirs — heirs of God, joint-heirs with Jesus Christ." 



SERMONS. 117 

Do not children inherit the possessions of their 
parents ? So shall also the children of God have an 
inheritance with him. Heirs of God ! What mind 
can compass that idea ! To be an heir of the rich 
of earth, we easily comprehend, though their riches 
be counted by millions. But to be an heir of Him 
who has created the universe surpasses our power of 
appreciation. Yet, it is a reality of which we speak. 
God's own word declares it. His adopted children 
shall be his heirs. 

Necessarily involved in this heirship of God's chil- 
dren is, 

(4) Their glorious exaltation. 

Men esteem it highly honorable to be allied to 
the great of earth, and often, by virtue of such alli- 
ance alone, do persons gain esteem and elevation, 
which by their own personal merit they could never 
have attained. The hereditary titles and dignities of 
earth are illustrations of the truth, that alliance to 
the great is honorable. To be the -son of a king, is 
to possess the title of prince, and to be exalted in 
the estimation of men. What exaltation, then, be- 
longs to him who is acknowledged as a son, by the 
King of kings ! To be allied to the finitely great 
confers honor ; what honor then is his who is allied 
to him whose greatness is infinite ! 

This exaltation may not be acknowledged by the 
men of this world. Nay, there ever have been those, 
living from hour to hour as mere pensioners on our 
Father's bounty, who have treated with the utmost 
contempt and scorn our Father's own children — 
God's sons and daughters. 



Il8 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

"Alas," says Bunyan, "they are some of them so 
mean that they are not worth taking notice of, by 
the high ones of the world ; but their betters do 
respect them ; the angels of God do not count them- 
selves too good to attend upon them, and camp 
about them to deliver them." These holy ones 
know what it is to be sons of God. Lazarus, as 
he lay at the rich man's gate, was spurned even by 
hired menials. But what mattered this ? Bright 
angels from the upper sphere knew his rank as a 
son of God, and took their stations about him, even 
in his low estate ; and when he died, bore him in 
triumph to Abraham's bosom. If men of the world 
do not understand it now, the day is at hand when 
the exaltation of the sons of God will be fully 
acknowledged. If the Christian is despised by men, 
let him not give way to shame, but rather remember 
his title, and pity their blindness. 

2. Christians are called to be co- laborers with 
God. 

"We are laborers together with God." Were it 
not that these words are familiar to our ears,, they 
would most surely excite astonishment. 

Co-laborers with God — the Maker of the Uni- 
verse ! In what ? In the work of creation or prov- 
idence ? Were it so, what honor would be ours ! 
Were we commissioned from his throne to speed 
into distant space, and call worlds into being, and 
preside over the wonderful changes which divine 
power effects ; to set suns in their centres, and 
order the revolutions of planets in their appointed 
orbits, or on their axes ; or even to control and 



SERMONS. II9 

direct the agencies of a single sphere, like that on 
which we live ; to fix the boundaries of the waters 
and make the streams flow on their course ; to give 
growth to the herb of the field and life to the ani- 
mals that roam over the land ; to set the winds in 
motion and direct the course of the storms ; to 
awaken the internal agencies which send up the 
fiery stream of the volcano, and make the earth 
tremble and quake ; were these and such duties as 
as these assigned to us, in which we might be 
co-laborers with the great Architect and Ruler of 
the Universe, how honorable would be our position, 
and how responsible our charge ! 

But these are not the greatest works of God. 
Magnificent indeed are the displays of divine power, 
exhibited in the innumerable worlds of his creation ; 
but more glorious far are the manifestations of his 
divine attributes, in the work of redemption. To 
speak into being is great, — to redeem is greater 
still. 

" Those mighty orbs proclaim thy power ; 
Their motions speak thy skill : 
And on the wings of every hour, 
We read thy patience still. 

" But when we view thy strange design, 
To save rebellious worms, 
Where justice and compassion join 
In their divinest forms. 

" Here the whole Deity is known, 
Nor dares a creature guess, 
Which of the glories brighter shone, 
The justice or the grace." 



120 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

In this greater, more glorious work of the Deity 
it is that Christians are called to share. Here, 
by divine appointment, they become co-laborers 
with God. They are called to work not upon 
senseless, dead matter, but upon intelligent im- 
mortal souls : and the effects of their labors are not 
temporary and passing, but enduring as eternity. 
The men saved by their instrumentality are saved 
forever, and forever will their bliss and glory 
augment. 

But how are Christians to be instrumental in 
accomplishing this work of God ? 

( l ) By their example. Them the Saviour has 
styled the light of the world, and by the illustration 
afforded in their characters, are men to judge of the 
power and excellency of that gospel which offers to 
save them. 

If that example is as it ought to be — such as to 
constrain men to acknowledge that a divine power 
has wrought upon them, and that they are under the 
influence of motives of which the world knows noth- 
ing — much will be done towards leading observers 
to the embrace of the gospel. In a multitude of 
instances, the conviction, forced upon the conscience 
by a holy example alone, has resulted in conversion ; 
and vastly more numerous have been the cases, 
where such example has favorably affecled the mind 
of the observer for the reception of the truth which 
it illustrated. The arguments of the lips sophistry 
can evade ; but the argument of a holy life is unan- 
swerable. Therefore has the Saviour commanded — 
" Let your light so shine before men, that they may 



SERMONS. 121 

see your good works, and glorify your father who is 
in heaven." 

(2) Again, Christians share in this work of God, 
as ambassadors commissioned to declare to men the 
truth, and urge on them the motives of the gospel. 
"As though God did beseech you by us, we pray 
you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God.' 
Thus spoke the apostle, and thus should every 
Christian feel and speak. None but Christians will 
thus speak — none but those who have themselves 
become reconciled to God through his Son, can con- 
sistently do so. It is to them alone, that this work 
of winning men to the acceptance of the gospel 
message, is committed ; and it is through their 
instrumentality that this world is to be brought to 
Christ. The first publishment of gospel tidings, to 
the shepherds on the plains of Judea, was by the 
angelic host, but since then, men have ever been 
the messengers to their fellows, and we are plainly 
taught that so it is ever to be, until the millenial 
morn shall break, and all shall know the Lord, from 
the least unto the greatest. God has devised the 
wondrous plan, Christ has died on the cross to per- 
fect it, and the labors of Christ's disciples, by divine 
appointment, are to bring the great truth and doc- 
trine of human redemption into contact with the 
hearts and consciences of men. Thus are they 
co-laborers with God. 

Just in proportion as Christians are faithful to their 
calling, as agents in this work, are converts multiplied. 
So the whole history of Christianity proves. Should 
the whole church cease from labor, the advancement 



122 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD . 

of the gospel among men would cease, and should 
the whole church come up to the full measure of their 
duty, the whole world would soon be saved. 

How important, how responsible a part, then, 
have Christians to bear, in this great work of human 
redemption! In deed and in truth — not by a fiction 
of language — are they co-laborers with God. By 
their holy example, by their forcible presentations of 
truth, by their earnest persuasions and exhortations, 
by their prayers and persevering efforts, they can be 
the means of saving from eternal ruin those who 
else would perish. In the world to come, their 
instrumentality will be fully acknowledged. The 
souls thus saved shall shine as stars in their crown 
of rejoicing forever and ever. 

Once more, 

(3) Christians are called to the reward and bless- 
ings of an eternal life. To attempt a description of 
that future glory, which scripture has declared^to be 
far beyond the most exalted conceptions of man, 
would be vain. Let it suffice to say, that the bless- 
ings which the redeemed shall enjoy are such as 
God's infinite wisdom and power only can prepare. 
At the day of final reward, Christ will say to those 
who have believed upon him, " Come ye blessed of 
my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you 
from the foundation of the world." Is not this suf- 
ficient warrant of the unspeakable blessedness of 
the eternal state ? 

We have briefly considered the Christian calling. 
Let us give a few moments attention to the exhorta- 
tion of the apostle, that we may 



SERMONS. 123 

III. Walk worthy of our calling. 

Surely no one who has a right to the name of 
Christian can feel indifferent to such a matter as this. 
No one can, when sensible of the important position 
he occupies as a follower of Christ, be content with- 
out a strenuous effort to realize, in some good 
degree, the character which such an one is supposed 
to maintain. As a means of stimulating ourselves 
to such effort, we ought 

1. Ever to keep our vocation in lively remem- 
brance. We ought not to allow ourselves to forget, 
or even to be unmindful for a moment, of our high 
connections, and of the privileges and duties which 
spring therefrom. Who has called us, and to what are 
we called ? It is God, whose voice we have heard, 
and whose grace has been given, to summon us 
away from the paths of sin, to become his children 
with all the privileges and duties and hopes of chil- 
dren, to become co-laborers with him, in the great- 
est and most glorious of all his works, and to 
participate in all the rewards and blessings of an 
eternal life in heaven. Such is our vocation, and 
always ought we to keep it before us. Wherever we 
go, in whatever business we are engaged, whatever 
our surroundings of blessing, of temptation, of trial, 
this should never be absent from our thoughts. 

What a controlling, strengthening, guiding influ- 
ence would such a constant lively remembrance of 
his vocation have upon the Christian ! When flat- 
tered by the world, and tempted to an ambitious 
striving after the honors which fade and perish, or 
when despised and scorned by men, as a follower of 



124 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

the lowly Nazarine, he would equally be kept from 
an unholy longing after sinful glory, and from yield- 
ing basely to sinful shame, by the thought, " lam 
a son of God." 

What comparison can there be between the honor 
that comes from men, and that which comes from 
above ? When enticed by the glitter of earthly 
treasures to set his heart upon them, he remembers 
hat he is an heir of God and a joint heir with Christ ; 
and shall one having in view such a glorious inheri- 
tance debase himself, by falling in love with the 
" beggarly elements of this world?" When he looks 
upon a world lying in sin, and asks himself the fearful 
question, "Must all these perish in their evil ways?" 
he remembers that he is called by God to be a co- 
laborer in the work of their salvation, and he is ani- 
mated by the thought, not only of the honor of this 
high alliance, but of the assurance of success which 
it involves. When he is cast into the furnace of 
affliction, and darkness envelops him on every side, 
and difficulties beset him, and trials overwhelm 
him, he remembers that he is called to the rewards 
and blessings of an eternal life, and soon all these 
evils will end, and then shall come the promised 
rest. 

It whatever condition the Christian may be placed, 
whatever the circumstances that surround him, he 
will ever find in the memory of his vocation a pow- 
erful impulse to worthy action. He will derive from 
it strength to stand, courage to resist, resignation 
and fortitude to endure, zeal and perseverance to 
labor, and hope to cheer and bless. Let us then 



SERMONS. 125 

ever and always bear it in our minds, that we are 
Christians, the chosen sons and heirs of God, and 
that we may walk worthily of our vocation. 

Finally, let us in all these relations involved, 

(2) Strive to demean ourselves as if he who called 
us were personally present to our sight. 

We know that he is ever present, for so has his 
word taught us, and that he looks upon those he has 
called to be his children, with the kind interest of a 
father. If we remember this, when any question of 
duty arises, or any temptation comes, or any trial, 
there will be but little, danger of our going far astray. 
The thought of the presence of a holy God, to 
whom we hold such relations as have been men- 
tioned, will prove a most effective revealer of all 
those sophistries of the evil heart, by which it seeks 
to avoid duties or gain consent from conscience to 
indulge in sin. Those adroit self deceptions which 
men practice upon themselves are at once exposed, 
and made to appear in their true character, when 
looked at in the presence of him who searches the 
heart. 

Let us then, brethren, keep God, who has called 
us, ever in our thoughts as present, and we shall 
walk more worthy of our high calling. Am I doing 
the work given me ? Am I exercising the faith and 
love he has made it my privilege to possess ? Do I 
feel that I am his child and that his Spirit dwells in 
me ? Let such be our self-promptings at all times, 
and surely we shall walk more worthy of our 
vocation. 



SERMON VII. 



MORAL SHADOWS. 

THAT AT LEAST THE SHADOW OF PETER PASSING BY MIGHT 
OVERSHADOW SOME OF THEM. ACTS V. I 5. 

The sacred historian declares, " By the hands of 
the apostles were many signs and wonders wrought 
among the people ; insomuch that they brought forth 
the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and 
couches, that at least the shadow of Peter passing by 
might overshadow some of them." " There came 
also a multitude out of the cities round about unto 
Jerusalem, bringing sick folks, and them which were 
vexed with unclean spirits ; and they were healed 
every one." What a beneficent shadow was this, and 
how honorable the position of its owner ! No king 
upon his throne ever enjoyed so enviable a dis- 
tinction or was permitted to be the almoner of so 
great benefits to the needy. Behold the apostle as 
he walks along the streets of the city ! Is there in 
his appearance aught that marks him as the especial 
favorite of heaven ? Nothing save the mingled 
expression of holy confidence and joy that sits upon 
his features. A pharisee, standing on the corner of 



SERMONS. 127 

the street, seeing the passing throng, turns a cold 
look upon him and with a scornful curl of the lip, 
says, ''This is the fellow of whom I have so often 
bought fish in the market; what has so exalted him 
in the estimation of the people?" With this sneer, 
he turns away; but the people follow. They have 
seen the mighty works done by his hands. Day 
after day, fresh proofs of miraculous power have been 
given, in the healing of the lame, in the curing of 
disease. Witnesses have been multiplying till they 
have become a throng, testifying to their own expe- 
rience of the healing. mercy. Thus has the popular 
confidence grown, till the very sight of the apostle 
sends a thrill of joy to the hearts of the afflicted. 
Learning of his approach, the dwellers along the 
streets hasten to bring forth their sick on beds and 
couches and set them by the wayside, that at least 
the shadow of Peter might fall on them, as he 
passes. 

This was a physical shadow ; its influence was felt 
as a physical cause ; it reached merely the ills of the 
flesh. But Peter cast another shadow more benefi- 
cent far than that formed by the interception of the 
sunlight; a shadow which fell not on the bodies, but 
on the souls of men, whose power was not for the 
curing of physical disease, but for the healing of spir- 
itual maladies. Peter's greatest honor was not in the 
miraculous power which he was permitted to exert 
for the physical well-being of his fellow men; nor 
did he so esteem it. This was a mere incidental ; it 
was in the commission given him to preach the ever- 
lasting gospel, the privilege of bearing the good 



128 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

news of salvation through the cross to a perishing 
world, in which he gloried. And oh, what a mighty 
work for good did he accomplish, by his words of 
truth spoken with the fervor of earneatness and the 
authority of inspiration! See him on the day of 
Pentecost, as he stands before the multitude of Jeru- 
salem, and pours forth those divinely begotten utter- 
ances, those winged arrows of truth, whose sharp 
points pierce the hearts and consciences of thousands 
and compel them in agony of conviction to cry out, 
"Men and brethren, what shall we do?" See him 
before the Sanhedrim, not only boldly confessing 
Jesus, but with emphasis declaring to those proud 
pharisees and enraged persecutors, that there is no 
salvation for them but of Christ. See him again, at 
the beautiful gate of the temple, making known to 
the people, whom his miracle has filled with wonder, 
the way of life through the Messiah crucified and 
risen again. Follow him on his way to Joppa, as he 
goes discoursing to the multitudes on the same great 
theme. Go with him to the abode of Cornelius, to 
whose household he breaks the bread of life, wel- 
coming with gladness the Gentiles to the participation 
of gospel mercy. In imagination, trace him through 
his long career as an apostle, till, like his master, he 
is brought to the cross; and everywhere we shall 
behold the same influence for truth and righteous- 
ness — everywhere, as in the streets of Jerusalem, a 
healing shadow accompanies him. What multitudes 
of hearts have experienced its genial power — what 
thousands of lives have felt its rectifying influence — 
what hosannas of praise are now sounding in the 



SERMONS. I29 

blessed regions of light and glory as the eternal 
results ! 

But not Peter alone has cast a shadow in the 
world. As in the physical world every human being 
casts a shadow, so is it in the moral and spiritual 
world. It is a necessity. No man can avoid it. As 
well and as easily may one walk forth in the bright 
sunlight and refuse the company of his physical 
shadow, forbidding it to go before him, or to follow 
after him, as he may walk forth among his fellows, 
in the daily course of life, as to refuse the atten- 
dance of his moral shadow. It will accompany him 
be he pleased or displeased to have it so. 

The elements which enter into human influence 
are so numerous that we may not mention them all. 
Intellect, conduct, character, spirit, bearing, are 
prime constituents. When a man of great intel- 
lectual strength appears among us, we instinctively 
pay to him a kind of reverence, and when in his 
presence, though not a word is spoken, we feel the 
shadow of that mind upon us. More or less of this 
feeling we experience ever, in our intercourse with 
men, especially with those held in high repute for 
learning, for inventive genius, for eloquence in 
speech, for wisdom in council, for ability in carry- 
ing forward great enterprises, for skill in business. 
Mind is felt everywhere, and we are ever walking in 
its shadow. 

So also character has power. Whether good or 
bad, it throws a shadow on the community which we 
cannot fail to recognize. Who of us is not conscious 
of the influence which every man of marked moral 

Y 



I30 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

qualities exerts upon ourselves, when in our pres- 
ence, or when brought before our minds in thought? 
It is impossible for us to contemplate the character 
of any man, without experiencing the effecl: favorably 
or unfavorably. Suppose him a man marked for 
uprightness and honesty in his dealings, or for kind- 
ness and affability of manner, in his intercourse with 
others, or for his benevolence toward the poor ; 
feelings of respect, and love are awakened in our 
hearts toward him, and we feel an impulse to imitate 
his virtues. Wherein we fail of these excellences he 
is a reproof to us more effective than language can 
give. Or suppose him of different character, — 
unjust and selfish in his dealings, morose, conten- 
tious, uncivil in his ordinary bearing, cruel, hard- 
hearted toward the poor, ungenerous and harsh in 
his treatment of those dependent upon him ; and 
we feel an instinctive repulsion from him, and are 
impressed with the unloveliness of such traits of 
character. Or suppose him possessed of a proud, 
domineering spirit, which seeks to make all around 
bend to his will ; and the spirit of independence is 
awakened within us, and our dislike for such attri- 
butes of character is confirmed. So ever is the 
shadow cast on us. A political procession marches 
through our streets with inscribed banners borne 
aloft. We look upon them, read the inscriptions, 
comprehend their significance and feel awakened 
within us the sentiment of approval or disapproval, 
and perhaps form purposes to aid the advancement 
of the cause presented, or to oppose it with all our 
power. So to each individual, the rest of the world 



SERMONS. 131 

form one grand procession, whose characters, like 
inscribed banners, are presented to his gaze, as they 
march before him, all exerting some influence for 
good or evil upon him. 

As we speak of character, so may we speak of the 
actions of men, of their words, or even of their bear- 
ing, their expression of countenance, their tone of 
voice, their general appearance. Each and all help to 
make up the shadow they cast. Rarely do we meet 
a person who does not, through some of these traits 
or characteristics, or by the combination of them, 
throw the shadow of his or her influence upon us. 
Some persons we meet upon the street, whose sunny 
countenances beaming kindliness upon all leave a 
sweet impression, and draw our hearts into a closer 
union with our race ; others ever carry an expression 
of dissatisfaction and petulance ; and others, again, 
a kind of scowl of defiance, as if they thought every 
one they met an enemy against whom they must put 
themselves in hostile attitude. We feel a cold chill 
as we pass such a shadow. 

Tone, too, carries with it a mighty influence. The 
modulations of voice very often effect more than the 
words uttered. All the emotions and feelings are 
thus indicated — pride, insolence, contempt, anger, 
humility, genuine urbanity, respect, love, and the 
like. Even in the most trivial intercourse of life this 
appears common. A stranger stands in yon door- 
way, not noticing that one wishes to enter. A kindly 
voice is heard, " Please stand aside, sir, and let me 
pass." The gentleness of the tone falls agreeably 
on the ear, and a pleasing impression abides with 



132 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

him long. Perhaps a different tone of mingled com- 
plaint and disrespect is heard — uttering the same 
words — and for days, or even years, the unhappy 
impression thus made, may never disassociate itself 
from the individual who created it, but remain to 
work mischief in the heart of the hearer. A mother 
speaks in a gentle, loving tone to her child, and 
soothes its little sorrows, and fills its heart with love ; 
or a cross, petulant "go away" is returned to the 
little one when, worried or unhappy, it comes with 
its little troubles, and oh, what a cloud settles down 
on that little heart ! What shadows of darkness and 
chilliness are too often thrown over a whole house- 
hold by the unhappy spirit of a single member ! 

And so it is in all the relations of life. Shadows 
agreeable and beneficial, or dark, and gloomy, and 
evil, are falling all around us. That of a single man 
often affects a whole community, yea, even a nation, 
or the world. Suppose that from some elevated 
position above our sphere we might look down and 
trace the progress of a total eclipse over the surface 
of the earth. See the dark shadow travel over land, 
over sea, enveloping city, country, kingdom after 
kingdom, in its black night and chilly gloom. Like 
this was the shadow of an Alexander, as he marched 
with his conquering army, spreading devastation and 
ruin over city and country and kingdom. What a 
dark eclipse fell on tribes and nations of Asia, as he 
swept over them in the pride of his might. In the 
dark line of his travel we behold armies annihilated, 
kings dethroned, countries subjugated, everywhere 
human blood flowing in rivers. Nor has the shadow 



SERMONS. 133 

spread over these lands alone. Down through the 
ages it comes, falling with baleful influence on human 
hearts, causing to grow up, in its deadly shade, 
crowds of ambitious thoughts and desires, which 
excite to like deeds of warfare, and blood, and wicked 
conquests. And so will the shadow of this famous 
conqueror continue to exert its baneful influence, 
while history is read. In like manner, on the pages 
of history, do the shadows of others — his imitators 
and compeers in warfare — emperors, generals, and 
marshals, send down to ages following their evil 
power, filling the minds of thousands with false ideas 
of glory and honorable aclion. 

In like manner the shadows of great statesmen 
have fallen on their own and succeeding times for 
good or for evil. So too of great writers in poetry 
and prose ; great teachers, inspired and uninspired ; 
and so of great discoverers, and inventors, and 
laborers, and leaders in the various departments of 
enterprise and usefulness. The world is full of 
shadows coming down from the past and falling on 
the living. 

But, turning from the past to the present, let us 
view the shadows cast by different characters in our 
own communities. Some of these are beneficial and 
blessed, and fall on us with a genial power ; others 
are baleful and cursed, and fall on us with a with- 
ering, deadly influence. How terrible the shadow 
of a rum-seller ! We read of the deadly shade 
of the fabled upas tree, in distant Java, beneath 
which the unsuspecting traveler sits for a moment's 
repose, and rises not again. The subtle poison, 



134 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

insinuating itself into the system, begets a pleasing 
languor, followed by a blissful dreaminess, sleep, 
unconsciousness, death. Equally sure, unspeakably 
more dreadful, the fate of the poor victims on whom 
falls the shadow of the evil vender of intoxicating 
poisons. The shade, on its outer edge, seems even 
pleasant and attractive to the young and giddy 
throng ; but once entered, it speedily grows darker 
and blacker, till, at its centre, it becomes the black- 
ness of darkness. Follow its gradations : The bril- 
liant wit over the sparkling wine-cup, the boisterous 
mirth, the midnight revel, appetites made strong, 
daily draughts a necessity, vicious associations, loss 
of self respect, ruined morals, ruined health, dissi- 
pated features, unhappy homes, ill -clad families, 
abused wives and children, disgraceful broils, crimes, 
thefts, robberies, murders, the felon's doom, the 
drunkard's grave. On such scenes and such char- 
acters falls the rum-seller's shadow, and such are the 
gradations by which it deepens from the twilight of 
gloom to the midnight of darkness. 

Again, turn for a look upon the shadow of a gam- 
bler. Step forward where it may fall on you for a 
moment; and what a chilling sensation of indefinable 
fear runs through all your veins, as if you were 
momentarily expecting to feel the poisonous fangs 
of some venomous reptile! I remember a trip, some 
years since, up the Mississippi. On board, among 
the crowd of passengers, was a gang of these des- 
perate plunderers. Day after day and night after 
night, in that crowded saloon, they plied their infer- 
nal trade, inveigling the unwary into their toils ; 



SERMONS. 135 

allowing them to win for a while, then cautiously 
changing the fortune ; leading on by a varying 
success and loss in an exciting course, till at last, by 
a few rapid strokes, the w r ork was finished, and the 
poor dupes were stripped of all and turned over to 
despair and drunkenness. Oh, in that shadow, what 
ruin there was ! We may not follow it to the end. 

The infidel, the opposer of divine truth, casts his 
shadow in community where he dwells, and how do 
faith and love and virtue perish as it falls on them. 
He utters words of cavil against the doctrines of the 
gospel ; throws out plausibly constructed objections 
against the inspired authority of the Bible ; re- 
proaches professed Christians for their inconsis- 
tencies, with bitterness ; those inclined to scepticism 
hear and are strengthened in their unbelief; those 
who wish for excuse to reject the claims of truth are 
helped to refuse the obligations that press on their 
consciences ; those disposed to candor, but of doubt- 
ful mind, are thrown into uncertainty and wander in 
darkness ; and even those beginning seriously to 
inquire the way of salvation are hindered, if not 
thrown back entirely into former carelessness and 
indifference ; and in a thousand ways the influence 
is felt, upon various classes, to pervert or destroy. 
The influence of an artful, malicious infidel, in a 
community, is most alarmingly pernicious. His 
shadow is the shadow of death : souls perish in it. 

And what is the shadow of an unfaithful professor 
of religion? He has publicly claimed to be a dis- 
ciple of Jesus, and is set before the world as an 
illustration of the power and value of grace to renew 



I36 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

the heart and sanctify the life. But he has long 
failed to exhibit those fruits of the Spirit which men 
have been taught to expect from him. On the 
contrary he exhibits a worldly, unchristian spirit. In 
the place of benevolence, he exhibits selfishness ; in 
the place of a liberal, generous conduct toward his 
fellow men, he shows a grasping disposition which 
seizes every opportunity to accumulate earthly treas- 
ure, at the expense of others. In the place of 
prayerfulness and a love for the house of prayer, he 
exhibits an aversion for the exercises of devotion. 
The family altar is neglected, the gatherings of 
disciples in the house of prayer are deserted, the 
closet is forsaken. His life seems to say, " What 
profit shall I have if I pray unto him ? " Instead of 
zeal in the cause of God, activity in labor for the 
salvation of sinners, a spirit of sacrifice akin to that 
of his master, the world beholds indifference, spir- 
itual stupidity and covetous withholding, in time of 
Zion's need. Professing brethren, is the shadow 
cast by any among you like this ? Not so dark 
perhaps we all may truly say. Thank God's grace 
that we can. But let us beware, lest we any even 
approach such a character. Let us take care that 
the shadow of our example, in respect of words, acts 
or spirit, be not in any degree prejudicial to the 
cause we claim to love ; that it may never cast a 
chill upon the hearts of our brethren, or upon the 
the souls of them that are without. 

We have glanced at the shadows of men of evil 
character and evil lives — cold, dismal, dark, destruc- 
tive. Those of the good in character and life are 



SERMONS. 137 

the opposite — warm, pleasant, bright, beneficial. 
Look at a Howard. He has cast a shadow of ben- 
evolence upon his fellow men ; warming their 
hearts with love ; filling their minds with happy 
thoughts ; cheering and benefitting their souls with 
a generous influence, ever since the days of his 
devoted, unpurchased labor for the poor and outcast 
and the wretched inmates of prisons and penitenti- 
aries. The world is better now for that example 
and that influence, and ever will be while his shadow 
falls on appreciating souls. We, to-day, are better 
for it ; and were some object of benevolence urged 
upon our sympathies, the example of a Howard, 
vividly portrayed, would inspire greater liberality. 
Sitting within his shadow, we should more forcibly 
feel the unworthiness of a covetous, withholding, and 
the loveliness of a generous, spirit. The champion 
of truth in the sixteenth century, Martin Luther, — 
what a shadow is his ! We see him, single-handed, 
girt with the power and courage which faith in the 
truth and faith in his divine master gave him, stand- 
ing up in bold defiance of Pope, cardinals and 
bishops, emperor, kings and nobles, lords temporal 
and spiritual, and with confidence and unyielding 
firmness maintaining the purity of those doctrines 
he has learned from God's word, at the peril of his 
life. Like Paul, upon whom the great truth of 
justification by faith, only, has laid such fast hold ; 
and has so filled his soul with its divine influence, he 
counts not his own life dear unto him, so that he 
may fulfill his course and the ministry of salvation 
committed to him. Strong in the Lord, devoted to 
z 



I30 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

the cause of pure religion, he goes forward, yielding 
to no opposition, deterred by no fear, stopping at no 
obstacle, but fighting valiantly the good fight of 
truth, till victory is won, and multitudes, long held 
under the worst bonds of superstition, and oppressed 
by papal tyranny, are freed forever. Through suc- 
ceeding generations, the influence of that great ref- 
ormation, inaugurated by Luther, has been spreading 
through the Christian world. The shadow of the 
great Reformer has fallen with its beneficent influ- 
ence on more than three centuries of the Christian 
world, and thousands on thousands have, through all 
that time, blessed God for the light of truth which 
his grace made to shine into the heart of the monk 
of Wittemburg. 

But we need not speak of those alone, whose 
prominence has caused them to fill the eye of the 
world, as instances of beneficent influence. Multi- 
tudes are they whose names have scarcely been 
heard beyond the circle of friends who have learned 
to love them, who have cast a shadow, not as wide, 
but as blessed in its nature, as they whom God's 
providence has set on high. That Sunday school 
teacher, who died lamenting that he had never been 
able to accomplish anything of real worth, through 
years of devoted, untiring labor, had been casting a 
silent yet powerful influence, which he could not 
measure. When he was gone, one after another 
came forward to attribute their conversion under 
God to his faithful words and earnest, loving man- 
ner. That gentle pious mother whose cares -and- 
labors have been confined to her own household, 



SERMONS. 139 

and whose loving counsel and prayers and quiet 
influence have done more than all other causes 
combined to foster good principles in the minds and 
hearts of her children — tell me, is it not her shadow 
that falls on the communities in which those children 
move as worthy and valued citizens ? Is it not her 
shadow that falls on the congregations swayed by 
their words of truth ? Is it not her shadow that 
falls on a whole people whose national councils have 
been influenced and directed by the. one who came 
forth from her humble household ? The Father of 
our Country was once a child on the bosom of a 
mother : and how much we owe to that mother, for 
our Washington, we can never fully know. And 
how much this whole nation is and ever will be 
indebted to that humble Christian mother who, in 
the lowly hut in the woods of Kentucky, and in the 
rough cabin amid the wilds of Indiana, instructed 
our own Lincoln in the sacred truth of the Bible, 
and formed within him that unswerving principle of 
honesty, which so fitted him to become the safe and 
sure pilot of our national ship, amid the stormy 
surges and angry breakers of the great Rebellion, it 
would be presumption to say. We know his own 
words, uttered with a quivering voice and a tearful 
eye — "All that I am or hope to be I owe to my 
angel mother — blessings on her memory"; and we 
err not in saying that it is her shadow, as well as 
his, that falls on us now, from the grave of his mar- 
tyrdom. Ah, faithful mother, little dost thou know 
whither through thy children, or thy children's chil- 
dren, thy shadow may go. "A suffering child of 



I40 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

God," says the Christian Intelligencer, "who was 
lately laid in her grave, said to her pastor a few 
hours before she died, ' I feel as if I were going to 
heaven without any sheaves/ She had lingered 
long with consumption, which wasted her young life 
away, just as she had finished her first score of 
years ; and her chief wish for a longer life was that 
she might ' do more for him who had done so much 
for her.' But the patient sufferer knew not how her 
quiet testimonies for Christ and her exemplary sub- 
mission to his will, and her latest joys, rising even 
into rapture, had ministered to those who saw and 
watched her during her illness. And she went 
home with her pale, thin hands full of golden 
sheaves — the sheaves of sanctified trial and ripened 
faith. The garner of our Lord is full of such har- 
vestings. Active exertion is not the only way of 
in-gathering. The passive virtues are often the 
most fruitful. They are the only sheaves which 
multitudes of God's reapers can gather. In the 
stirring external Christian work of our times these 
truths are apt to be forgotten or overlaid. Our 
Saviours obedience was both active and passive, 
and his followers should never forget the promi- 
nence which is always given in the Scriptures, not 
merely to his expiatory sufferings, but also to those 
which were sympathetic and exemplary. To know 
' the fellowship of his sufferings/ is to know also 
■ the power of his resurrection/ And they are 
greatly mistaken, who think that ' no sheaves ' are 
to be gathered in the Valley of Humiliation. In no 
part of the wide harvest-field are there more of 



SERMONS. 141 

those who ( go forth weeping bearing precious seed,' 
and who shall 'doubtless come again bringing their 
sheaves with them.' " And so the active, zealous, 
faithful Christian, and the afflicted, suffering, pa- 
tiently waiting Christian, in whatever sphere of life 
he may move, or endure, is casting a shadow of 
influence, the extent of which, it is neither his privi- 
lege nor that of those who observe him to measure 
in this life. Eternity will reveal it to his unspeak- 
able joy. 

My hearers, we are all casting shadows upon the 
circles and communities in which we live. What are 
they? Are they shadows of good or evil? Do they 
help Christian virtues to grow and thrive, or make 
them wither and die where they fall? As fathers 
and mothers, as neighbors and friends, as brethren 
and sisters of the church say, what is the character 
of that secret, subtle power called influence, which, 
by the very nature of things, we must exert over 
the hearts and lives, and temporal and eternal desti- 
nies of those with whom we come in contact ? Is it 
such that in future days they shall bless our memory? 
Is it such that in heaven, fully appreciating its effects, 
we ourselves find it an element of our blessedness 
forever? We are passing away. The places that 
now know us shall soon know us no more. But 
when we are dead, we shall not be. all dead. Our 
shadows will not die with us. Nay, on many hearts 
they may fall with mightier power than while we live. 
Those dear ones of the household from whom we 
go, upon them will come, from our remembered 
words and ways and spirit, an influence that cannot 



142 NATHANIEL MILTON WOOD. 

be estimated ; for who can measure the intensity of 
that shadowy power that streams forth from newly 
made graves upon the loved ones left ? Oh, are we 
all living with the remembrance in our hearts? Are 
we taking care that the influence of our daily acts, 
words and spirit is such as we shall wish to leave 
behind us ? May God grant us grace so to live, 
that the prayer of one on record shall not be ours : 
" Bury my influence with me ; I die, but oh, bury 
my influence with me." 






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